The first-ever Lehigh Avenue Arts Festival, nearly a decade ago, wasn’t much more than few craft tables outside the Portside Arts Center’s building, at the corner of Belgrade Street and Lehigh Avenue.

“The first one was planned in three weeks, in a sort of ‘oh, let’s have a festival’ way,” Kim Creighton, founding director of Portside Arts Center, said. “There were maybe ten vendors, just a few hundred people. It has doubled every year since then.”

The annual celebration of children, art and community has ballooned into a significant event that is both a major fundraiser for the non-profit and a hub for showcasing the area’s creativity. It has gotten so big, in fact, it has outgrown both its original home on Lehigh Avenue and its name.

Now called the Portside Community Arts Festival, the event will take place at Penn Treaty Park on April 25, from 12PM to 5PM. Creighton called the move a product of increased attendance, albeit one that comes with a little less organizational headache.

“[For the 2014 festival] We had to re-route four buses, there were two accidents on 95, we had to get all the signatures from the neighbors,” she said. “[The move to Penn Treaty Park] gives us a lot more room, and a lot less organizational paperwork to do. But the neighbors are sad, they love the festival. We love the community support we’ve had. It’s the reason we’re able to move it to Penn Treaty Park to cover the increase attendance we’ve had.”

Creighton expects between 5,000 and 7,000 residents to attend this year’s festival.

Besides art displays, vendors and food trucks, this year’s festival will include slot car racing, tie-dye t-shirt-making, silk screening, sand art and live performance workshops. The event will also include the second Philly Puff, an inflatable art display and competition, to be judged by members of the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym.

Assistant Director Jenna Wilchinsky said increasing the center’s online presence has made a big difference in attendance. “When we got our website up in 2012, things grew significantly,” Wilchinsky said. “2013 was our biggest festival, and 2014 was just as big.”

The growth is good, she said, because it gives Portside a chance to shine a light on children’s art.

“We’re literally one of the only kids arts festivals,” she said. “We’re the only one that celebrates family and fun with art integrated into the whole thing. The kids have so much fun, and it lets us introduce ourselves to the community.”

That sense of community is key to the festival’s—and Portside’s—success, Creighton said. Proceeds from the festival go into the art center’s scholarship fund, which is applied for children, teens and adults who want to take art classes, but might not have the means.

“A lot of people want to come here, or want to come more often, but they can’t afford it,” Creighton said. “It’s a luxury in this neighborhood…scholarships can mean so much. We know a lot about our people, so we can distinguish where the need is.”

Last year’s festival brought in between $6,000 and $8,000 for the center’s scholarship fund. This year, Creighton hopes to bring in $10,000. That money will be used, in part, to serve a wait list of families who would like to utilize the center’s classes but can’t afford the cost.

“$10,000 means over 100 scholarships, anywhere from 100 to 150 classes, for kids, for teens, for adults,” she said.

More information on the event and Portside Arts Center can be found atwww.portsideartscenter.org.