Huntingburg City Park to be filled with "Mighty Kindness"

A Celebration of Community Unity, Joy, Inspiration, Compassion, Creativity, and Connection

The Mighty Kindness Hootenanny is set to fill Huntingburg City Park with music, inspiration, and a powerful sense of community this Saturday, November 1, 2025, from noon to 6:00 p.m. ET. This free, family-friendly festival celebrates the heart of humanity through art, creativity, and authentic connection.

The Mighty Kindness Hoot is all about building a community where everyone belongs, is nourished, and is inspired. Across two days, you’ll discover:

Kind Community spaces filled with connection and compassion
The Inspiration Station to spark creativity, get free hugs and affirmations and hope
A KindheART Walk with a special Community Memorial — bring a picture or symbol to honor human or animal loved ones who have passed
The Random ACTS of Kindness Stage with surprise performances and inspiration
Free School Tent Talks featuring powerful offerings from local changemakers
AND MORE: Street Theatre spectacles, Mighty KIDness adventures, parades, costumes, bubbles, art, and many more offerings!

“Make powerful connections, learn, grow, create, shout, dance, circle, sing, hug, and help build the unity of a community where everyone is seen and celebrated,” said Aim Me Smiley, Festival Organizer.

The Love Revolution Stage will come alive with soul-stirring performances by Kris Lasher, Debbie Schuetter, Chris Dixon, and Troubadours of Divine Bliss, known for their uplifting harmonies and message of unity.

Festival-goers can explore the heART Walk, an interactive community art experience. The heart Walk will be featuring a touching Community Memorial, where guests are encouraged to bring photos or mementos to honor loved ones or pets who have passed. This shared space of remembrance offers a beautiful reminder that love never fades—it simply transforms and the kindness and love we have shared keeps us connected.

Sharing Kindness in Action

At the Kind Community Village, local nonprofits, artisans, and changemakers will share their missions and creations. The Free Market embodies the spirit of generosity—offering free clothes, food, diapers, and essentials to anyone in need, no questions asked.

Visitors can enjoy delicious fare from local food trucks, then join the joyful Community Jam, open to all musicians and music lovers.

Families will delight in costumes, parades, trick-or-treating, the whimsical Inspiration Station, and surprises on the Random Acts of Kindness Stage throughout the day.

We are honored to have the kind sponsorship of SWICQL, Love Revolution, Dubois County Pride, Total Wellness Energy RX, Way of the Heart Woods and Ferdinand Commons!

Learn, Engage, and Empower

The Free School Tent will host a full schedule of workshops and “Tent Talks” designed to inspire learning, healing, and environmental awareness:

Air Quality and Health in Southern Indiana – Presented by Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life (SWICQL)*
Daily Energy Routine with Total Wellness Energy Rx
Stop the Mid-States Corridor Project – Community discussion – Community Over Highways: Impacts of the Proposed Mid-States Corridor — This talk will cover key points on the impacts the proposed Mid-States Corridor will have on the entire community including agriculture, the environment, public health, financial and other impacts. It will also cover the latest information from the current Tier 2 study segment covering Dubois County.
Spoken Word Open Stage hosted by Rock Emmert – Everyone welcome!
Safe Haven Recovery Engagement Center – Offering free addiction recovery services and Narcan distribution across 13 counties

*At 2:00 p.m. ET, don’t miss the featured Tent Talk by SWICQL one of our festival sponsors: “Environmental Health and Citizen Advocacy in Southern Indiana” with Mary Hess, president of SWICQL, and Ellie Albin, environmental journalist and sustainability graduate student at Indiana University. Together, they’ll address critical questions: Why is southwestern Indiana considered by some scholars to be an “environmental sacrifice zone”? How do pollution patterns impact local health—cognitive function, heart disease, cancer, infant mortality, and more? What can citizen advocates do to make lasting change? Hess and Albin will share how SWICQL’s citizen-led campaigns successfully stopped a $2.5 billion coal-to-diesel refinery project (2018–2023) and how the group now provides air monitors and well-water testing kits to empower communities with data and hope.

Join the Movement

The Mighty Kindness Hootenanny isn’t just an event—it’s a movement. It’s a call to remember our shared humanity, to care for our planet and its people, and to celebrate the everyday kindness that holds communities like ours together.

Bring your kindness. Bring your costume. Bring your joy. Let’s make kindness in our community a little mightier—together.

Here is more information about the event, with some questions we sent to the organizers.

Can you tell me a bit about the event’s history? When it got started and why.

We started an online resource at www.mightykindness.org and soon after hosted our first Earth Day Hootenanny in 2008 at Willow Park in Louisville, Kentucky. After great response from the community, we added a Harvest Hootenanny. As the Hoots grew, we moved to the amazing Louisville Nature Center and eventually found our Louisville home at Waterfront Park’s Brown-Forman Amphitheater where our festival grew to draw thousands of attendees.

The Mighty Kind Krewe (our crew of volunteers) is made up of a small group of musicians, students, teachers, community leaders and healers who volunteer our time because we believe in the possibility of a kinder world.

Why have you expanded and chosen Huntingburg for this event?

We were born in Louisville and loved our neighbor, Southern Indiana. 24 years ago, we moved and made Perry County, Indiana, home. We truly cherish this beautiful neck of the woods and the surrounding communities where we have made connections over the years. Huntingburg is such a vibrant town with great offerings like Huntingburg City Park that provide inspiring spaces for us to gather. Huntingburg is also more centrally located amongst the Southern Indiana counties and felt like a great, welcoming place to host our 1st Southern Indiana Mighty Kindness Hoot.

What are your hopes for the Huntingburg event?

We want to infuse more kindness and goodness into the community and help strengthen our connections as neighbors. We hope to highlight non-profits, for-profits, local artisans, musicians, changemakers and more to help create greater awareness and support for the good and inspiring work they are doing and creating. We really need more kindness right now. People are longing to be treated with understanding, compassion, empathy, goodness and kindness. The Hoot is a place where we can demonstrate and build a closer community based on kindness, connection and mutual aid. Neighbors need to know neighbors. We believe community is found in common ground. When we stand together on that common ground, we create greater community unity as we are growing a MIGHTY Kindness!

Will this become an annual event in Huntingburg?

We hope to have a successful festival that continues to grow goodness and kindness year after year. We would love for Huntingburg to continue to be home for us to host an annual Hoot!