It’s a hard-to-beat combination — free food and the Riverwalk.

Naperville’s landmark path will get some big improvements in the next few years, and Riverwalk leaders are eager to spread the word.

They’ll hold a free continental breakfast for residents from 7 to 9 a.m. May 25 in meeting rooms A, B and C at the Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St.

The Riverwalk Commission and Riverwalk Foundation are hosting the “State of the Riverwalk at 25 Years and Beyond” forum. The breakfast could draw up to 300 people.

Leaders will update guests on the status of the project, which is in honor of the path’s 25th birthday. When work begins next year, they say, they don’t want it to be a surprise.

“It’s sort of a reality check on where we’re going,” said foundation member and organizer Stephanie Penick.

The path’s walkways will be widened and a veterans memorial moved east to ease congestion around the Dandelion Fountain. The walls supporting the path’s lower walkways also will be replaced and widened.

The work is broken into segments, with the first from the parking lot at Main Street and Jackson Avenue to the fountain’s west end.

In 2008, work begins on the second segment, from the fountain to Eagle Street. And around 2010, a gateway plaza will replace the parking lot.

Leaders at the breakfast also will discuss how private donors can help, commission Chairman Rick Hitchcock said.

“We’re going to explore what components might have the most appeal and what things we have to be sensitive about,” he said.

Leaders also hope the event helps clarify confusion between the commission and the foundation. The former group is a city council commission that plans and designs projects; the latter helps raise money for those projects.

“We’re focused on the same things, we just have different missions,” Penick said. “But we want to get the message out that we’re working together.”

For information on the breakfast, call Riverwalk Administrator Jan Erickson at (630) 305-5984.