Support the Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival

Help keep the Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival a free community event!

After a magical inaugural start in 2024, the Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival is back! But in order to keep this event free and accessible to the public, we need to raise some cash.

A combination of donors, sponsors, and vendor fees helps pay for the free programs we provide (parade, bands and musicians, community art-making by ArtsWestchester, Strawtown Studio, etc.), plus festival logistics (staff, rentals, and porta-potties).

This year we are raising funds to accommodate the festival's scale -- in our first year, between 2,500-3,000 merfolk, pirates, and fish-lovers showed up! While it's not surprising so many people love mermaids (and the Hudson River), we were expecting less than half that turnout.

We can't wait to do it all again, especially now that we know our community is here for the fun. And with a small donation, you can help make it happen.

About the Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival:

The purpose of the Mermaid Festival is to encourage river stewardship, promote swim access, and bring the community together through the living history of the Hudson River and Kingsland Point Park.

Though Sleepy Hollow stretches along the Hudson River, not everyone has the same opportunity to swim or boat there. The lack of public swimming and affordable swim lessons in our community prompted us to create an event that connects residents with this mighty natural resource and highlights the opportunity to make use of Kingsland Point Park's once-public bathing beach, where SUP mermaids and kayakers will launch during the water portion of the parade. This beach was first opened in 1924, 100 years ago, and served as the Village's local place to enjoy the river until 1974, when it was closed.

At the inaugural 2024 festival, we opened the beach for public swimming -- and packed the park -- during an unforgettable event that included a costume parade, performances, environmental education, and community art-making.