Summary: Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 21, Calistoga held three public gatherings at two sites: National Night Out at Pioneer Park, the final Concerts in the Park show of the summer and the 22nd Back to School Community Celebration at Berry Field. Police estimated about 250 residents at the Aug. 4 open house, where 19 organizations tabled, and the concert season closed Aug. 20 with a crowd Calistoga Currents estimated at about 2,000, above the roughly 1,200 the Chamber of Commerce says the series averages. UpValley Family Centers counted 779 people and 47 partner agencies at the Aug. 21 school celebration, which returned after a year off because of the Pickett Fire. Leaders of UpValley Family Centers, which produces the event with the school district, said fear over federal immigration enforcement has begun to keep families away from services.
“I was driving by and saw how many chairs were down already and got anxious and pulled the blankets out of the back of my car.” — Tamara Kalin, co-owner of The Wager winery, describing how early regulars begin claiming space for Calistoga’s Concerts in the Park series
CALISTOGA, Calif. — Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 21, Calistoga held three public gatherings at two sites: a police open house, the last concert of the summer and the celebration that starts the school year. The last two fell on consecutive nights. Here is what each one drew and who was there.
Tuesday, Aug. 4 — National Night Out at Pioneer Park
Calistoga police hosted National Night Out at Pioneer Park on Aug. 4, the first Tuesday in August, when most communities across the country hold the event. Officer Samantha Arlen, the department’s school resource officer for the Calistoga Joint Unified School District, said 19 organizations took part and estimated about 250 residents attended, along with roughly 25 people staffing partner tables. Calistoga Currents identified 17 of the participating organizations.
Arlen said the department has held the event for 10 years. Police Chief Matthew McCaffrey said it has run at least that long.
Families arrived in a steady stream across the evening rather than all at once, and some appeared to have wandered in without knowing the event was scheduled. Pinewood derby cars ran at one end, a ring toss sat in the middle and a hat bar — where children pressed patches onto blank ball caps — ran at the other. The hat bar drew the longest lines of the night.
McCaffrey, who has led the department about 18 months and grew up in Healdsburg, said the point of the evening is contact that does not begin with a call for service.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is break down barriers, and honestly, I don’t think we have barriers here in Calistoga,” McCaffrey said. “But I’ve worked in different jurisdictions where people have limited exposure to the local law enforcement agency. So anytime we can have that experience on a casual basis like this, that’s awesome.”
Asked why school resource officers do not wear softer uniforms, McCaffrey said the uniform is the point.
“Because I want them to get exposed to the police uniform,” he said. “That’s somebody they can talk to. That’s somebody that’s approachable to them.”
Arlen, who started as a reserve officer before being hired full time, said the school assignment works the same way.
“You are able to build trusting relationships with them,” she said. “So if they have a problem or something comes up that they need your help, you know them, and they know you.”
Her mother, Sue Arlen, drove up with several daughters and grandchildren to watch her work.
“She really wanted her niece and nephews to be able to see her in uniform,” Sue Arlen said. “They haven’t seen her in uniform before.”
Emma Good, Arlen’s sister, said the draw was the town as much as the job.
“I know that this community means everything to her, and she takes a lot of pride in protecting and serving the people of Calistoga,” Good said. “Driving through, it’s absolutely beautiful, and I can see why she loves it so much.”
For some families it was a first. Juan Solorio came with his wife, Fatima, and their two children. The family moved to Calistoga about four years ago.
“I know that they do this every year, we haven’t even have the opportunity to come, so this is our first year coming,” Solorio said. “There’s a lot of ... help for the community, all of the things that we can get help with here in town.”
At the UpValley Family Centers table, Xitlaly Vazquez handed out free naloxone alongside information on family resources and parenting classes.
“It’s pretty simple, and it saves lives,” she said.
The tables ran from health coverage to animal adoption. Aliados Health and CommuniCare+OLE brought certified enrollment counselors for Medi-Cal, Covered California and CalFresh. Soroptimist International of Calistoga brought scholarship information, anti-trafficking materials and books for its elementary read-aloud program. The Upper Valley Cub Scout Pack brought the Pinewood derby cars its roughly 20 scouts built last year. The Rotary Club of Calistoga served chili dogs and beans, with the chili and beans donated by Buster’s Original Southern Barbecue. Also tabling were the Napa County Sheriff’s Office, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office (which served snow cones), the California Highway Patrol, the Calistoga Fire Department, Tobacco Free Napa, NEWS (which provides domestic violence and sexual abuse services in Napa County), Song for Charlie, Matrix Parent Network and Resource Center, Wine Country Animal Lovers and Calistoga Parks and Recreation.
The Calistoga Community Emergency Response Team, which has tabled in past years, could not attend because its lead was ill.
Asked what the police department could do better, Arlen returned to the same idea.
“Always reaching out, always seeing who we can build connections with,” she said. “Be wherever we can in events like National Night Out to show it’s not just a badge. There’s a person behind that badge.”
Thursday, Aug. 20 — The Last Concert at Pioneer Park
By Wednesday morning, a day before the final concert of the season, the claiming of territory had begun. Chairs and tables appeared beneath the trees at Pioneer Park. By Thursday evening some of those tables had become picnic stations — spreads of oysters, baskets of fried chicken from Evangeline, food brought from home.
Then the music started.
Maya Latin Tribute Band closed Calistoga’s 10-week Concerts in the Park season on Aug. 20. Eric Reichert, president and CEO of the Calistoga Chamber of Commerce, which produces the series, said the concerts average about 1,200 people a night, a figure that matched what Currents observed at concerts earlier in the summer. The closing crowd was larger. Currents estimated it at about 2,000.
The dance floor stayed full as Maya moved through a bilingual mix of cumbia, salsa, Latin rock, pop and dance standards. Children, older residents, families and groups of friends moved between blankets and tables. Others crowded close to the stage. The crowd extended well past the dance area and across the park.
The season began June 18 with National Park Radio and ran every Thursday through Aug. 20 — 10 concerts of folk, rock, country, funk, tribute acts and Latin music. The series is funded through the Calistoga Tourism Improvement District and sponsorships and costs roughly $20,000 a year, Reichert said in June, a figure that does not include staff time.
The ritual was visible from the season’s first week. In June, chairs and folded blankets dotted the lawn a day ahead of the opening note. Tamara Kalin, co-owner of The Wager winery, was spreading blankets that Wednesday.
“I was driving by and saw how many chairs were down already and got anxious and pulled the blankets out of the back of my car,” she said at the time.
Reichert also described an unwritten rule that shapes the evening: Regulars keep their blankets back from the stage so a dance floor opens in front of the band. On the final Thursday it stayed open, and it stayed full.
Each week paired music with local wineries, food and a community organization. The season opened with Wild Diamond Vineyards and Elusa Winery pouring and Sunrise Horse Rescue as the evening’s nonprofit. It closed with Picayune Cellars and Joseph Cellars and the Brannan Center.
Then the music ended, the tables came down and another summer of Thursdays at Pioneer Park was over.
Friday, Aug. 21 — Back to School at Berry Field
The next evening, the Back to School Community Celebration returned to Berry Field on the campus of Calistoga Elementary School, 1327 Berry St. It was the 22nd year of the event, though not the 22nd consecutive one: The 2025 celebration was canceled because of the Pickett Fire. UpValley Family Centers, which produces it with the school district, counted 779 people and 47 partner agencies. Marcela Rodriguez, the nonprofit's education program manager, said about 40 volunteers and roughly 30 staff worked the field.
The tables ran from early learning to elder care. The theme was country. Napa County Office of Education staff brought a cardboard cutout of Dolly Parton to promote the Imagination Library, which mails a free book each month, in English or Spanish, to children under 5. Anna Johansson worked the Calistoga Art Center table. Student volunteers ran the popcorn and snow cone stations, and a mechanical bull ran most of the evening. A Napa singer, Jazmin Oro, opened, and Generación 05 — a norteño group of Calistoga High School alumni, largely self-taught, formed during the pandemic — closed it.
Rodriguez said the point of putting so many agencies on one lawn is to remove the trip to Napa.
“It’s important so that our community members know what resources are available for them,” she said. “We help reduce the barrier to access to services.”
That is also the logic behind the group’s expansion into the Vermeil House, a former Adventist Health clinic in Calistoga where UpValley now hosts a Medi-Cal representative and legal aid staff alongside its own programs.
Audra Pittman, superintendent of the Calistoga Joint Unified School District, said the arrangement is unusual.
“We as a school district couldn’t do this work without our partnership,” Pittman said. “They partner with us on mental health, supporting students, food, bringing families together. It truly is a true partnership that you don’t see in many places.”
Karina Arias, a bilingual therapist with Mentis, said the shortage she sees is not of services but of services families can actually use.
“It’s being able to get those services in the languages that they know and understand,” Arias said. “So Spanish-speaking services, being able to have that representation, be able to be here at the site.”
Monique Byro, a community engagement project manager with the Napa County Resource Conservation District, was tabling on climate stewardship and said the mix on the field was the point.
“It’s so lovely to see an intergenerational mix of folks coming together to support our future,” she said.
Laurel Rios, a Calistoga resident, parent of two children in the district and a Calistoga Joint Unified School District trustee, came with her two daughters. Rios is also running this year for one of two open school board seats.
“This is always an event that brings the community together,” Rios said. “It’s beautiful to see community members here that don’t have kids in the school district that are out to support, as well as teachers, faculty, students.”
Indira López-Jones, acting executive director of UpValley Family Centers and a 21-year employee of the organization, said participation has climbed steadily over the years. She also said something has changed this year.
“There is a lot of fear in the community about all the talk at the national level and all the threats against the community in general,” López-Jones said. “Because now it doesn’t matter, you are undocumented person versus a documented one — everybody feels the threats the same way.”
She said the fear has begun to show up in enrollment.
“That has affected our programs and the participation,” she said. “People are afraid ... to give their name and to have their name in some kind of record.”
Pittman said that is part of why the field is crowded with uniforms and agency logos on the same night.
“They know that they are safe in our places, that we are going to welcome them in,” Pittman said. “All of us are here to support whoever lives here and whoever has needs here, regardless of what their immigration status is.”
Doug Boeschen, president of the UpValley Family Centers board and a Napa Valley winery owner who lives in St. Helena, put the organization’s reach at more than 3,000 unduplicated clients a year.
“That includes a little more than a quarter of the population of St. Helena and Calistoga,” Boeschen said. “These are our neighbors and our friends and the people who make our businesses work.”
Asked why the county’s homeless numbers had risen, Boeschen pointed to the same economy that fills Pioneer Park on Thursday nights.
“There’s a wide range of pressures that are getting worse these days,” he said. “Some of that is political. Some of that is economic. It’s been tough on the wine industry lately, which of course is our number one employer in the county.”
Some of that pressure is counted. Napa County’s point-in-time count on Jan. 28 found 428 people experiencing homelessness, a 14% increase over the 2025 count. Of those, 190 — 44%, up from 33% a year earlier — reported it was their first time.
The Count
Over 18 days: about 250 residents and 25 table staff at Pioneer Park on a Tuesday at the beginning of August. About 2,000 at the same park on the last Thursday of the concert season. And 779 at Berry Field the following night.
Then the school year began.
Photographs by Clark James Mishler and Tim Carl.
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Tim Carl is the editor and publisher of Calistoga Currents.
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Re: the poll question on what's the greatest value of community events like these? My answer: All of them! (How can I pick just one?) 😊