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Sitting on a bench between her two sisters, happily eating funnel cake Monday, 6-year-old Hope Arce-Reed enjoyed her time at the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival.

"I went on one ride," the Greenbelt Elementary School first-grader said with a wide grin. "It was good."

Hope was among thousands of Greenbelt and surrounding area residents who attended the 54th annual festival at the Roosevelt Center. Hope's mother, Esther, brought her daughters there for the first time.

"We just moved here, and this is very different," she said. "There are a lot of people and a lot of different ethnic backgrounds and cultures represented and that was something we wanted to be a part of."

The event featured carnival rides, games, softball tournaments, photo and art shows, food and information vendors, arts and crafts, pageants and live bands, including regular favorite, the Fabulous Hubcaps.

Linda Ivy, president of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival Committee, said the event is about more than carnival rides, games and food.

"There're so many things to do that there's enough to pique everyone's interest," she said. "This brings the community back. One thing I love is that people who've left Greenbelt come back for at least a day."

The four-day festival began Friday and wrapped up on Monday, hours after the Labor Day parade. The parade's Grand Marshall was the festival's 2008 Outstanding Citizen, Leonie Penney, 90, honored for her contributions to the Greenbelt Assistance in Living program.

Karine Stefchner, owner of The Food Station vending booth, has been selling homemade potato chips, shrimp, sausages and more at the festival for 17 years.

"It's family," she said. "I know a lot of people here from over the years."

Another staple, The Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Democratic Club sponsored a lemonade and funnel cakes booth and registered voters. Member Jane Ross said the club has come annually for about 15 years.

"In two days we've registered lots of people to vote," Ross said. "This is a wonderful fundraiser and is one of the biggest events in Greenbelt every year— a good place to meet people."

Lou Parker is such a regular that people seek him out and tell him they wait all year to get barbecue ribs from his booth. Sponsored by the Greenbelt Arts Center, Parker is so impassioned and committed to being able to contribute to the arts center that he sometimes closes his nearby bakery, Chef Lou's Desserts, so he can spend all his time cooking at the festival.

He doesn't mind that this sometimes causes him to lose money, he said. He feels it necessary to use his talent as a professional chef to help raise funds, he said.

"As a Washingtonian, I grew up watching how businesses had a hard time giving back to the community, like they were just there to make money," Parker said. "At an early age, it struck me – if you are a business owner in a community, you have a responsibility to give back. It shouldn't be about how much you can make, but what you're willing to give back."

Parker couldn't imagine not being involved, he said.

"You ask yourself, ‘Do you become a fabric of the community? Or do you just open up your business and go home?'" he said. "No. You become a part."