Spring Festival, poker and art next Saturday

Downtown Renton will be bustling next Saturday, April 19. The Piazza will be filled with booths hawking arts and crafts and foods, as well as live entertainers for Piazza Renton’s sixth annual Spring Festival. Downtown businesses will be filled with card sharks in search of the perfect poker hand during Downtown Renton Committee’s third annual Downtown Poker Run. The park next to the Piazza will be transformed into an Arts Unlimited gallery and filled with jewelry, ceramics, clothing, paintings and photography for sale by local artists, including students from Sierra Heights Elementary.

Downtown Renton will be bustling next Saturday, April 19. The Piazza will be filled with booths hawking arts and crafts and foods, as well as live entertainers for Piazza Renton’s sixth annual Spring Festival. Downtown businesses will be filled with card sharks in search of the perfect poker hand during Downtown Renton Committee’s third annual Downtown Poker Run. The park next to the Piazza will be transformed into an Arts Unlimited gallery and filled with jewelry, ceramics, clothing, paintings and photography for sale by local artists, including students from Sierra Heights Elementary.

• Piazza Renton’s Spring Festival, sponsored by Frontier Bank, is 12-5 p.m. at the Piazza, at South Third Street and in between Burnett and Logan avenues. Spring Festival will feature more than 30 vendors selling arts and crafts and food. Piazza Renton is an organization that aims to enhance community spirit and pride. Its initial focus is downtown Renton.

For more information about Piazza Renton, visit www.piazzarenton.com.

• Downtown Poker Run is 12-4 p.m. Participants sign up at 12 p.m. at the Piazza booth. Goody bags are given to the first 200 players to sign up. The suggested donation is $1 or a can of food for the Renton Salvation Army Food Bank. Participants then have until 4 p.m. to build a winning poker hand by collecting cards from the more than 40 participating downtown businesses. Prizes will be awarded at 4:30 p.m. at the Piazza. Poker rules and tips are available, says Rod Stewart, event chairman.

“It’s great,” he says. “Everybody comes in and pulls a card. It’s something fun to do, and doesn’t cost them a thing.”

Stewart owns Antique Country Station, which participates in and sponsors the tour, along with 12 other businesses. Last year’s Downtown Poker Run had 200 participants.

“The streets of Renton looked like an ant hill last year,” Stewart says. “It was a lot of fun.”

The Downtown Renton Committee is a wing of the Renton Chamber of Commerce. For more information, visit www.gorenton.com.

• Arts Unlimited Gallery will be next to Piazza Park, at South Third Street and South Burnett Avenue.

Happy Delusions is sponsoring the show, which will feature 22 artists hawking a variety of wares.

Arts Unlimited will also feature galleries at the Renton Car Show on July 6, the Downtown Art & Antique Walk on August 3 and a Restaurant Art Walk in October. For more information about Arts Unlimited, visit www.artsunlimited.org.