Glittering mermaid costumes made of household items flooded the town square as the Mermaid Society of Texas introduced two new programs at the eighth annual Mermaid Capital of Texas Festival on May 17.

The festival hosts the theme of “Uniquely San Marcos: Past, Present, and Always” each year. It reminds people of the city’s uniqueness because of the San Marcos River and the need to protect it. With this goal in mind, the Mermaid Society implemented changes this year and last that aligned with protecting the river and creating community. 

The festival previously took place in September. However, July Holbrook, founder and executive director of the Mermaid Society, believed the festival’s new switch to May could ring in summer while also sharing information on how to keep our river clean during the summer months.

“We kick off summer in San Marcos with this festival, and this will be the first year that we are able to really capitalize on this very public and celebratory platform to bring attention about the need to protect our river,” Holbrook said.

The A.R.R.R.T Program

This year’s Mermaid Festival implemented the Artivism: Reuse, Recycle, Reimagine for Texas (A.R.R.R.T.) program, which is the Mermaid Society’s community program initiative to merge art, activism and environmental stewardship. A.R.R.R.T. has been a goal of the Mermaid Society since early in its existence but was implemented for the first time this year. Its vision is to reach all kinds of people and share the message of river stewardship by relating back to the mermaid culture in San Marcos.

The A.R.R.R.T program encouraged participants to get creative, reuse discarded materials and avoid extra waste when making their floats, costumes and more. As a result, San Marcos’ streets flooded with mermaids decked in shiny scales and colorful shells crafted from discarded materials. Floats made entirely out of cans from the river, umbrellas made to look like jellyfish with shopping bags and many more creative ideas were on display throughout the town.

“We’ve seen so many ideas,” Holbrook said. “It’s just crazy using chip bags to make a skirt or a dress, but the big crowning moment is that we’re really encouraging everybody to make their art hat or crown.”

The A.R.R.R.T. program is larger than this year’s festival. Holbrook said the program’s biggest goal is to make people aware of waste and how it affects the town, river and environment, from being implemented in San Marcos schools to a potential A.R.R.R.T. fair at next year’s Mermaid Festival.

Maya Price, an attendee at this year’s Mermaid Fest, saw the new programs as a creative way to incorporate environmental conversations into a fun and interesting community event.

“Seeing what this town is about and seeing all the different initiatives… It’s just great to see a town with so much culture,” Price said.

Summer Siren Duty

The Mermaid Society also recently started an initiative for community members who want to take part in protecting the river called Summer Siren Duty. It runs from May 24 to Aug. 31 with three-hour shifts available Monday through Saturday. This is a volunteer opportunity that started last year, but it is open to the public on a much wider scale this summer to protect the river by informing river goers of proper ways to dispose of trash to keep the river clean.

“We really are very committed to delivering river stewardship messaging and meeting people where they are in their understanding of that,” Holbrook said.

Merritt Drewery, an Aquarena with the Mermaid Society, said sirens will be posted at Rio Vista and Lions Club every Saturday and Sunday of the summer. The process for becoming a siren entails an orientation on river education. The Mermaid Society asks that sirens sign up for two shifts a month during the summer. Sirens have a choice between educating at the river’s edge while wearing a mermaid tail, walking around the river’s edges or cleaning up and educating on a canoe or paddle board.

Drewery said one of her favorite memories during Summer Siren Duty was educating families and seeing the excitement on children’s faces at seeing her dressed as a mermaid at the river’s edge.

“[I loved] watching the children start approaching the river and they see a mermaid tail, and they come up and they hug you and they want to take pictures,” Drewery said, “It’s an opportunity to excite them but also to really engage them.”