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Fun Fest lives up to name, purpose
Photo
SCOUT'S HONOR: Three members of Cub Scout Pack 119, from left, George Conrad, Adam Van Tassel and Isaiah Kohl, stop by a food stand during the Fall Fest in New Middletown. They were there Saturday.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
NEW MIDDLETOWN — Rain and chill dampened the air Saturday at Welker Park, but the spirits of people who showed up to help raise money at the village’s annual Fun Fest were sunny.
“The people here really support their library,” said Deborah Liptak, director of development for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
Fun Fest is held annually at the park, just off state Route 170, to help raise money toward the cost of the Springfield branch of the public library, which opened in January 2006.
“It’s basically a community craft show and rummage sale,” Liptak said. “It’s such a nice community event. It’s too bad it rained today.”
Nancy Tablack, chairwoman of the library’s fund-raising committee, said 22 vendors had signed up to participate in the event, the most since Fun Fest was started three years ago.
“We seem to get a few more each year,” Tablack said. “The first year, we had 15.”
Tablack and Liptak said all money raised at Fun Fest goes toward a capital campaign to help pay off construction of the library.
“The community made a commitment to raise $100,000 over five years to help pay for the new library,” Liptak said. “So far they have come up with about $40,000.”
In the past, the library was basically one small room near the front of New Middletown’s municipal building and saw only limited use by the community, Tablack said.
“It was so small that there started to be a threat of closing it,” she said. “We just rallied around it,” and library officials ultimately decided to build a new, larger library that would serve an expanded area.
At just more than 3,500 square feet, the Springfield branch, located at 10418 Main St., is more than three times larger than the old facility. It is designed to serve patrons in New Middletown, New Springfield, Petersburg and southeastern Mahoning County.
“It’s just a beautiful library,” Tablack said, noting that she and her husband read some 15 to 20 books between them every two weeks. “We’re both really avid readers.”
She said planners didn’t set a goal for how much they wanted to generate through Saturday’s Fun Fest. A final tally was not available yet, but Tablack said it would probably be on the low side because attendance was driven down by the poor weather.
“But people just keep coming in,” she said, watching as a mother and her two young children pulled up and got out of their car. “I think people are just really big on supporting their library. I know I am.”
Liptak said all the vendors who participate in Fun Fest are from New Middletown or the surrounding area.
Liptak said other fundraisers held throughout the year include spaghetti dinners, basket raffles and a spring tea. A book review will be in October at the Poland branch, she said.