Volunteers make park social happen in Warsaw
WARSAW – For more than 50 years the community has been invited to the River View Community Park to enjoy food, fun and entertainment.
The 53rd annual River View Community Park Social will be held Friday through Sunday, Aug. 2-4. Friday’s entertainment includes a community pool party from 8 to 10 p.m. with $3 admission. Bingo will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday at the large shelter and Sunday features the main events. The chicken barbecue starts on Sunday at 11:30 a.m., McFarland Martial Arts School will do demonstrations at noon, the Walhonding Rube Band will play from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., there will be a $53 coin toss at the pool at 2 p.m., Chestnut Ridge Bluegrass Gospel Band will play from 1:30 to 3 p.m., the kids’ watermelon eating contest will be held at 3 p.m., and post time for the Beaver Run Duck Race is 3:30 p.m. There will also be a 50/50 drawing, dunk tank and Rollie Darr Memorial Baseball Tournament.
One of the highlights of the weekend is the chicken barbecue, which also includes homemade noodles, sandwiches, homemade pies and homemade ice cream.
“The firefighters have been taking care of the chicken since as long as I can remember,” said Corey Fischer, vice president of the park board. “They start a little after 4 a.m. Without them we wouldn’t have enough volunteers or people to do this. We start with 720 chicken halves and some years we go through it all and some we have two or three dozen left. A couple of years we donated some to Mark Granger’s church, but it’s not too often we have that much left over.”
Two other popular Sunday events are the kids’ watermelon eating contest and the plastic duck race.
“Sandy Zimmer, one of our board members, came up with the idea of the watermelon eating contest and I think we’ve been doing it for probably 30 years,” Fischer said. “I think it’s so popular because kids of all ages can do it. Two-year-olds to 18-year-olds can participate.”
Last year 14 watermelons were donated by Shopwise for the contest and several businesses donated money toward trophies.
Funds raised from the social help with general upkeep of the park.
“As soon as this is over we will be repaving and restriping the basketball court,” Fischer said. “It’s probably been since the early 90s that it was updated.”
Projects like this would not be possible without all those who attend the park social and those who help make it happen.
“Since I’ve been little some of the same faces like Mike Snyder and Chet Beard have been helping,” Fischer said. “They’ve probably been involved in it for the better part of 40 years.”
He added that River View’s football team has helped the last two years, Dari-Land lets them use their machine for making homemade ice cream, the village employees and the pool staff help out, Shopwise takes care of getting the chicken and hot dog and hamburger buns, and they have a list of 60 to 70 people to call for pie donations.
“It takes a little bit of everyone,” Fischer said.
Category: People & Places
