Families and residents with Athens Housing Authority got together to celebrate community and parental involvement with a picnic in the park Thursday at Fifth Avenue Park in Athens.

The cookout has been an annual Father’s Day celebration for years now, according to several in attendance, but this was the first year it had been expanded to include all parents and families.

“What we try to do is get local vendors to come in and have something that will help the residents out,” AHA Executive Director Larry Pippins said. “We got Smart911, which we’re really pushing hard because it can save a life real quick, and Women Empowering Women, we got them. They are providing some good services for our folks.”

Smart911 is a free service that allows Limestone Countians to pre-record names, emergency contacts, medical history and more for first responders to use in case of emergency. Women Empowering Women (WEW) is a local food pantry. WEW had bags of canned and nonperishable goods prepared Thursday for families in need.

“If they want a bag, they can get a bag or what-have-you, and we boxed up these little snack boxes for the fathers with a little bow on them like a gift,” Latoya D. Moore, a representative at the WEW tent, said. Each bag came with a sticker and additional information on the nonprofit.

Athens residents William Southard and Theodore Pride were among those who attended the cookout. In between taking photos of others in attendance, Pride said he had helped advertise the event, the fourth he has attended.

“This is the first year we’ve done mothers and fathers together,” Pride said. “We usually have them separate.”

Southard also said it was his fourth year. He had once again found himself away from the main event, hard at work on the grill, where he seasoned and provided freshly cooked burgers and hot dogs for everyone.

“They get me every year,” he said with a smile.

Pippins said the event focuses on families within the housing authority, but they have yet to turn anyone away from the chance to see the good HUD and AHA do in the area.

“If somebody from the community comes over, we don’t say no, because they’re a part of us. Anything they want to do, we let them come and participate in whatever we do,” he said. “We don’t say, ‘You don’t live here, you can’t eat with us.’ We don’t do that.”

Besides, he said, they like to show they’re not all that one might hear about them.

“We like to brag about how we keep our property. A lot of people want to say we’re nasty, and my thing is, let people say what they want to, just don’t prove them right,” Pippin said. “Do something different.”