Heartwood Preserve begins hosting free Saturday events

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Games, face painting, music.

Those were just some of the activities at the Heartwood Preserve near 144th and West Dodge Road. It was the first of free community events being held every Saturday throughout August called Summer Saturdays.

Parents and their kids can take part in family activities before enjoying a movie on the outdoor projector after the sun sets.

“We saw a bounce house and there was food trucks here,” Faith Gichuki said. “So that’s the first thing we saw, and my kids wanted to have fun. So I was like, ‘This is very ideal.’”

The site it was hosted on used to be farmland that Boys Town owned. Insurance agency Applied Underwriters bought it in 2018.

Six years and millions of dollars later, it’s now a new hub.

“We’ve developed it with a very specific purpose in mind, in terms of preserving the environment and trees,” said Jeff Silver, its executive vice president. “So this is going to be the focus of a community outreach program over the next couple of months where we get the community involved here.”

Silver added it’s a unique venue for the free outdoor events.

“You can’t go anywhere else in the city of Omaha and have this kind of environment with trees preserved all throughout the complex, space for everybody.”

After August, they’ll host more events. But what they’ll entail is a surprise.

For now, attendees like Gichuki said more people should check out these free events.

“Free’s good,” she said. “Then with all these activities, and then it’s going to bring more traffic in this area, I feel like.”

Where Saturday’s event happened is only a fraction of Heartwood Preserve. Silver told 6 News they’re still developing it, and that when it’s all said and done, people are going to live there, shop there, and go to work there.

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