SIDNEY — Saturday’s rainy weather did not stand in the way of the Sidney-Shelby County YMCA’s 50th anniversary Y-FEST! celebration. Y-FEST! was presented by Wilson Health.
The event, held at the YMCA, lasted from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. and included a full schedule of kid-centered events, as well as a four-mile race for adults.
Events and entertainment included, an inflatable jump house, a “gum blowin’” contest, an inflatable obstacle course, a magician, musical chairs, raffles, miniature golf, a “frozen T-shirt” contest, face painting, ring toss, T-shirt tie-dyeing, and several other carnival-style games.
Food was available for purchase at the celebration and a few local food trucks were on-site, including, Truck n’ Fire Pizza, of Anna, Pcassios, of Jackson Center, and Susie’s Big Dipper, of Piqua.
Concession stands were also provided by the YMCA gymnastics and cheerleading booster clubs.
Erica Hicks, of New Bremen, formerly of Sidney, is the kinetics coordinator at the Y and co-organizer of the concession stands, along with president of the gymnastics booster, Laura Brookhart, of New Bremen.
Concessions included hot dogs, walking tacos, chips, drinks, nachos, chicken sandwiches, and desserts, as well as cotton candy and slushies.
“The gymnastics booster club and the cheerleading booster club made a combined effort to run this concession stand for donations,” Hicks said. “So, this helps them pay for nationals, uniforms, and buying new equipment in the gym.”
Originally, the cotton candy and slushy concession stand was to be set up outside, however, inclement weather led to a change of plans.
According to Tom Wiseman, lead chairperson for the Sidney-Shelby County YMCA’s Y-FEST!, the entire event was altered at the last minute in order to overcome the rain.
“We had planned to have everything outside,” Wiseman said. “But on Friday, we met at 7:30 in the morning and said, ‘Okay, what do we do?’”
“We just decided to bring some of the inflatables inside, a lot of the kids activities inside and some of the entertainment, like the magician and special presentations by the fire and police departments.”
Parents and children were not deterred by cooler temperatures and inevitable rain showers.
Elizabeth Clark, 28, and her son, Elijah Foster, 6, both of Sidney, arrived at Y-FEST! bright and early, at 8 a.m.
“(Elijah) ran the ‘fun run’ and I ran the ‘4-miler,’” Clark said. “This morning, it was nice and kind of chilly and we played out on the obstacle course, then we came inside and we’ve been playing here since.”
Elijah said his favorite part of the day was playing in the inflatable jump house.
Kristen Frost, 36, and her four children, twins, Kalee and Kylee Dennis, 10, Lyric Dennis, 8, and Jarone Dennis, 7, all of Sidney, arrived at the event around 11:30 a.m.
Frost said they would have come rain or shine, and that they enjoyed spending time at the outdoor segment of the fest while they could.
“(Lyric) played a game outside with ice T-shirts and he won,” she said.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, Lyric said his favorite part of the day was the ice T-shirt contest, while his three siblings all said they enjoyed the obstacle course the most.
Sponsorship was provided to the Y-FEST! by many local business entities, including Wilson Health, Advanced Composites, Airstream, Ferguson Construction, Emerson Climate Technologies, Community Insurance Group, Wells Brothers, Freshway Foods, Plastipak, Ring Container Technologies, Cargill, Cassano’s, Dickman Industrial and Electrical Supplies, Industrial Property Brokers, Area Energy and Electric, Berkshire Hathaway, and many other partner and supporting sponsors.
“We went way over budget, which was great,” Wiseman said. “This is a main fundraiser of the year for the Y and we blew it out of the water (in terms of sponsors). It gave us some room to add kids events we had not intended to originally add and allowed us to pay the entertainment what they’re worth.”
Along with the entire Sidney-Shelby County YMCA staff, including operations manager David O’Leary, CEO Ed Thomas, and financial development director Mark Kaufman, a core group of non-YMCA staff made up the Y-FEST! planning committee.
According to Wiseman, he worked with Tom Rossman, co-chairperson, Zach Bosslet, Susan Shaffer, Margo O’Leary, Jackie Simpson, and Jerry Vanderhorst to plan the event, which he said took a total of around six months.
Although this year’s celebration was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sidney-Shelby County YMCA, Wiseman said the Y-FEST! will now be an annual fundraising event.
