FRED - A hallmark of summer in Webb City has been held this weekend, and Webb City's King Jack Park.
Erin Turner is the Community Development Director for Webb City Parks and recreation, and she joins
us this morning to tell us what's in store. Good morning, Erin, and thanks for your time.
ERIN - Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.
FRED - This has to be a busy time of summer. You know, I think of summer typically. People take it easy and relax. That is not the case this week and this weekend.
ERIN - Most people do, yes. Not me. Here in Webb city.
FRED - OK, so what's in store for the2023 Cruse-A-Poolza this weekend?
ERIN – Oh, my goodness, this year sort of has a whole different look, but it being our 14th annual event. We kind of have some things down that are old hat that.
Of course, we always do the car show. We're going to have things for kids, games, live entertainment, that's amazing, which we I'm sure we'll get to, but what's new this year is we decided that instead of just having an event that is free and great for our community, we also wanted to have a Cruise For A Cause, so to speak.
We partnered with a national not-for-profit, called Hope for 22 A Day and what we are really wanting to focus on, and any proceeds will go to mental health awareness for veterans, active military and emergency responders.
And we really want that to impact our heroes locally as well as nationally. Tomorrow a convoy will be coming in with the truckers for kids'group and they will be carrying enough products for 100 veterans, homeless veterans here in our area.
That's one of the things Hope For 22 does each year provides those and then we are also dedicating our festival this year. Who are recently fallen brother, Police officer Corporal Jacob Williams. He was also in the Missouri National Guard.
So, we want to show our support for his dedication and service to our community and our country. His police car will be on site and a lot of our vendors are offering military and emergency responder discounts as well as proceeds. They will be donating back to the Williams family.
FRED - Yeah, I saw this on the website, and I was looking for more information, so thank you for providing also so much detail.
ERIN - It's all kind of been a lot, you know, we've in within the last week that addition has. Kind of come to light and so after talking with sponsors and event coordinators, we just said that's just what we wanted to do.
We love our Webb City family and our you know, within our family as employees, we love them so much. We just want to show our support.
FRED - Right. And you already mentioned it's the 14th year Cruise-A-Poolza.
ERIN - It's the 14th year of our annual festival and what happened was our Lions Club. Goodness 15 years ago they decided that they wanted to have an event at one point, then it was springtime on Broadway, and it always happened.
The second weekend in April. And it was downtown, that was before all the remediation in King Jack Park. I don't know if anybody remembers, but back then, the front of the park was the mine pit called Sucker Flat.
Well, the EPA came in and did us a huge favor and filled it in and we got this great area for a festival and so about five years ago. City officials said why are we doing this there we have. We can expand and make it so much bigger. We have an amphitheater that before wasn't even visible to the highway and now it is. And so we kind of decided to make this switch in April, we always battled weather and I think our last one downtown was 30 degrees and so we just said no, we need to move it.
And so, we decided we want to wanted to implement fireworks into it and just kind of have a middle of the summer thing. People maybe have gone on vacation already. It's almost time for school to start.
We're just a few weeks away from that. And we just thought, let's provide something free and fun right here in their hometown or, you know, in a neighboring town.
So July, the second weekend in July, just kind of.
FRED - Right. And yeah, you mentioned vendors, I read that correct, 80 vendors or craft vendors, food or craft vendors, that's just sounds like so many.
ERIN - Collectively, yes, we have a Route 66 Marketplace, we call it. And so those are non-food trucks.
We have 12. Food trucks signed up that vary from BBQ to shake and lemonade and kettle corn. You know, anything you can think of, that's what they have.
We have a root beer vendor. He makes his own root beer and corn dogs delicious. I always hope to lose weight during this weekend. That's not what happened.
And then we have, of course, vendors varying from all kinds of homemade crafts to people that it's a. It's actually a craft for them that they do wood burning, woodworking boutiques. We also have the Tulsa wind riders that come down. So, when you're pulling off of the highway and 249 or coming in from Pittsburg even. Y
You'll see those kites. High in the air and they have all shapes and sizes. They're huge. It usually brings a lot of people in. And then, of course, our car show.
Last year, our car space was too small, this has never happened before, and they had to turn away registrants. This year we have expanded our car show to a 300 by 175-foot area. So hopefully that that will handle that, and we've got the Carthage Humane Society coming in.
FRED - Well, not to mention the Farmers Market is still taking place.
ERIN - Absolutely yes. And of course, you don't want to miss that. We've got plenty of parking spaces in the park. You might have to walk a little bit, but that's no problem.
And we've, you know, Friday night is one of our big things that we've never done before is we have a huge meet and greet with our social media influencers and hope for hope22aday.org is selling tickets for that.
Everything else is free.
The entertainment is free.
But we have a VIP meet and greet tent and then we are also hosting a semi formal event after our headliners on Friday night and there are silent auction items that people will be able to purchase. They can bid online, or they can bid in person.
FRED - Well, and I know this is a little off the beaten track that the City Council has had ongoing talks about getting the sunshade over the Pavilion.
ERIN - Oh, it'll be there.
It'll be there this weekend I have been told.
I’ll have shade in the mining days building and the people who are installing it have promised me it will be up this weekend so. The seating for the eating areas will be shaded and then the seating for the Amphitheatre will be shaded this year.
FRED - That's great. I know that's been a month-long project, so I hope it's there for you.
ERIN - A month long?
FRED - No months, many months.
ERIN - Were like years.
Yes, yes.
But yeah, no it. I have it on good authority it. Will be there.
FRED – Erin Turner is the Community Development director for Webb City. Thank you for your time and good luck this weekend.
ERIN - Thank you so much, Fred.
