The festival also has taken lengths to be environmentally sustainable. The festival has agreed to donate a portion of its proceeds to. has claimed to have assisted more than 58 million people by providing 4.6 billion dollars in loans at this time with those numbers still growing. The Water Lantern Festival is partnered with, a humanitarian assistance organization that helps people in developing countries get access to safe water and sanitation. The festival certainly has become a popular event and so it is all the more surprising the lengths the organizers take to not only be community-driven, but also charitable and sustainable. The Water Lantern Festival has become a country-wide phenomenon, ranking as the number 1 cultural festival by USA Today. The sharing was a special moment that night that has been and will be repeated more than 120 times throughout the United States. “ It’s really meaningful for people to hear these experiences, hear what people in their community are going through,” said Gallup. Attendees were also offered the opportunity to share the significance of their own lanterns in front of all the rest of the event’s participants. Lanterns were decorated and dedicated to anything from superheroes to lost loved ones, or even to pets who couldn’t attend the event. The Water Lantern Festival also encouraged each lantern to have some personal meaning to it. “We feel that when people are people with each other, that’s when we make our most meaningful connections with other people.” The event pushes for that ideal by providing discounts on merchandise for people who participate in their connection-building scavenger hunt, which has people connect with fellow participants of the event.

“It’s to bring communities together,” said Dylan Gallup, the event organizer. It features an array of food vendors, live music, scavenger hunts, and lantern-building. Starting in Portland in 2018, the festival has become a popular event, selling close to 1,500 tickets this year in Portland alone. Hundreds of lights filled Deering Oaks Park in Portland on September 2 for the annual Water Lantern Festival.

A cozy little community festival comes to Portland again.

Portland water lantern festival