by Cori Hilsgen
news@thenewsleaders.com
It takes many helping hands to make the Joetown Rocks Festival come together.
That includes everything from planning the concert and parade lineups and security to creating quilts to be auctioned off; from publicity and advertising for the event to printing and selling raffle tickets; from setting up the stands to preparing cakes and candy for the stands; for making sure supplies are in the stands to coordinating volunteers; from working at the stands and praying for good weather to cleaning up after the festivities and much more.
A team of concert committee members and a chairperson, parish festival chairs and stand chairs, a leadership team and many other workers help make the big event happen.
For several years, volunteers have received Joetown Rocks T-shirts to help encourage people to volunteer and to recognize their contributions toward the festivities.
This year’s T-shirt distributions took place June 27-July 3 before the festival. Coordination of the T-shirt distribution was handled by the Church of St. Joseph Parish Liaison and Business Manager Sandy Scholz.
Scholz said the idea of the shirts began when Pastor Jerome Tupa, with his artistic eye, thought the festival needed to look more festive. Organizers thought the shirts would help add a festive look to the activities.
Scholz had 650 shirts, from youth to XXXL, to distribute for the concert and festival this year. She said she hoped she had enough to give to all who volunteered their time.
Scholz said more people than usual showed up for the first day of setting up the festival stands and things went very smoothly. Several people also commented to her that people seemed happy to be helping and some stayed all day to help.
“A lot of thought and planning goes into setting up the stands and it has really been fine tuned,” Scholz said.
Organizers were able to minimize the amount of heavy lifting that is involved with setting up the stands, and the process has been simplified. Equipment is stored on trailers in a storage shed built by the parish and the trailers are used in the set up process. Using the trailers eliminates some of the lifting and transferring of poles and other heavy equipment. A skid loader, used for winter snow removal, is also used for hauling and moving items while setting up stands.
Scholz said as the festival continues to grow, it becomes much more important to have enough volunteers to make the festival possible. More people, she noted, have been volunteering on July 3 and it is harder to find workers for July 4. Last year an estimated 15,000-18,000 people attended the festival.
Parish liaison Sandy Scholz coordinated the distribution of 650 T-shirts to be given to volunteers who helped with the July 3 and 4 festival.
Organizers got more help than usual on the first day of setting up stands for the July 3 and 4 festival.
Duane Pfannenstein (front) and Kameron Peck work on setting up the car merry-go-round.
Many children rode these cars on the merry-go-round.
Andy Loso drives the parish skid loader while helping set up parish stands.
This year’s volunteer festival T-shirt was blue. Last year the shirts were yellow.
