Lake Highlands Town Center’s Watercrest Park will be the site of the 2nd annual Lake Highlands Art and Play Festival and Camp Sweeney 5K on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26. The event is a fundraiser for scholarships to Camp Sweeney, a summer camp for children and teens with juvenile diabetes.
The 5K begins at 8 a.m., followed by a local art show, food trucks, face painting, rides, games and vendors.
The festival is free and sponsored by the Lake Highlands Public Improvement District. Registration for the race is $35 and can be done online here. (If you’d prefer, you can donate $30 for a Sleep In for Sweeney t-shirt and skip the race.)
Attending this year’s event will be the family of Nicole Wilson, a former Sweeney camper. If her name sounds familiar, Nicole is the 15-year-old Plano girl who died earlier this month from complications of Type I (juvenile) diabetes. For her birthday, she received tickets to the August concert of One Direction at AT&T Stadium. She was featured on the local news when her sister, Kelly, began tweeting a request that the band dedicate her favorite song, Story of My Life, to her. Within hours, there were thousands of retweets of #SingforNicole.
The social media campaign quickly grew into a fundraiser for Camp Sweeney, where Nicole spent 10 summers. Nicole was teased by her friends at camp about constantly requesting One Direction songs from the camp’s radio station. Nicole’s family originally hoped to raise $3,000 to send one camper to Sweeney in her name. That goal has been reached, and they’ll have a booth at the Lake Highlands event to sell t-shirts in hopes of earning a second scholarship.
If you’d like to donate to send a child to camp, learn more here.
