Did you enjoy Fungus Festival?—Give us feedback, we’d love to hear from you!
October 8, 2025
Take part in the Fall Continental MycoBlitz and get your specimens sequenced
October 15, 2025
We are so glad to see so many of you at the Fungus Festival on Sunday, October 5th. Fungus Festival 2025 brought the mushroom love and interest on all the different levels on knowledge and taste together.
Fungus Festival was free and open to all. It only happened because all of you gave so much of your time, passion and energy to it.
It will be impossible to mention and thank everyone who helped but we will try:
The Fungus Festival was a long process, and several people were along for the full ride.
Maren Fossi assembled a team of incredible presenters and organized their schedule for both sages to smoothly continue throughout the festival.
Juli Sasaki not only created gorgeous t-shirt designs, she has also created banners, a wonderful map and schedule and patiently dealt with our endless changes.
Edward Gutierrez helped to organize documentation and a very important insurance.
Journei Bimwala helped to organize partners and greatly supported the festival.
Doug has joined with full energy and has been very present at the meetings and helped at the welcome tent, as well as photography during the festival.
Ethan – always super supportive, proactive and attentive in every step of the festival creation.
Elan Trybuch helped with social media, website and had his beautiful slime photos at the festival.
Hector Prud’homme, Aki Fujiyoshi and Noah held fort at the microscopy table.
Bill May patiently tallied a hundred different invoices and made sure everyone got reimbursed.
Several of our members had tables with awesome displays or activities: Blacki Migliozzi, Roman Kosoy, Roberta Trentin, Farah Marie Velten, Loni Diep, and Journei (with Bronx River Foodway).
Sol Aramendi took people on a Spanish language walk around the Festival.
Alexandra Kirlan, Aishwarya Veerabahu, Lorraine Cruz, Ifetayo Harvey, Whitney Bauck and Lauren Wilson, Bruce Trigg, Aubrey Carter, and Hector Prudhomme gave lectures on subjects they are researching and are passionate about.
Loni Makes, Madam Susan, July Jewell, Tani’s Kitchen, 4 Wall Farm and Lorraine Brown supplied us with yummy food!
Special shout-out to all the volunteers who created the beautiful signs!
On the day, so many of you stepped up to volunteer – we thank you all!
Our awesome set-up and breakdown crew, several of whom got there just after dawn: Tessa, Amy Will, Christina, Karly, Nia, Ruby, Lala, Andrew, Jake.
Our walk leaders Matthew Rozanoff, and Monika Stangel navigated large groups and dry grounds expertly.
Our arts and craft team together with RIPA, Tristan, Lila, Eileen, Megan helped artists of every age create mushroom inspired crafts
Our Foray support team Winslow, Doug, Whitney, and Emily wrangled large groups.
Our ID table people Ethan, Bruce, Thomas Macaluso, Andrew, Matthew, Winslow, David Hutchinson, and Simon Gurvets talked non-stop for several hours answering questions and talking about the specimens on the table.
Our wonderful welcome and merchandise sales team valiantly managed a throng of people clamoring for T-shirts and kept great records: Tom and Sue Zucker-Scharf, Ash, Doug, Monika and Emily.
William, Rocco, Edward and Doug documented the festival in both video and photos.
Amanda Alic made the merch section of the web site work so that Fungus Festival t-shirts could be sold.
Our presenters support and workshop volunteers Lila, Soren, Victoria, Charlie, Monika, Diana, Morgan, Sophia, Charlie, Constance, Jeff, Aubrey, Jackson, and David helped wherever help was needed.
Fungus Festival extended beyond us. We had so many wonderful partners who offered activities, workshops and resources that vastly expanded the scope of the festival and allowed everyone to appreciate fungi in completely new ways: The Bronx River Alliance, The Interbeing Project, Biotech Without Borders, Big Reuse.
Thank you for the artists who presented their work for sale: Roberta Trentin, Irina Adam, Riitta Ikonen, Lindsay Robbins, Dre Mershad, Farah Marie Velten, Life Art Fungi and Brooke Goldstein.
We also want to thank our vendors: Catskill Fungi, Mushroom Queens, and Cam’s Urban Farm.
Thank you, just like last year, to James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center for their awesome food.
We are grateful for the steadfast support of the Randall’s Island Park Alliance who not only offered the Urban Farm to us for free, but provided many of the tables, chairs, tents, toilets, yoga mats and heaps of practical advice. We were working together since January and were incredibly supportive throughout. Chris, Ciara, Anna, the comms team and the on-the-ground staff deserve a huge thank you from all of us!
Please let me know if I’ve forgotten to mention someone and we’ll call them out in a future email!
Editors note: a huge thanks to Anna Efanova whose vision and organizing made the 2025 Fungus Festival actually happen. It was a fantastic event!
Addendum:
Yes, and with apologies, there were accidental omissions, which are corrected here…
Sigrid Jakob was among the helpers at the ID table. Maya Han presented the engaging Mycrocinema. Jake, Ash, Charlie, Sara Victoria, Thursday, and Will helped build and run the Mycrocinema theater and/or helped with concessions. Bethany Beech presented a fantastic workshop on mushroom dyes.
