Kids Day America gathers crowds
Families looking for an exciting weekend activity didn’t have to look far, as the annual Kids Day America festival returned in full force to the Butler Farm Show grounds this weekend.
The event featured a well-loved Cow Patty Bingo competition, a dunk tank, vendor and community booths and a car show where children could vote for the winners.
Dawn Surkosky, one of the event’s organizers, said Kids Day America has drawn upwards of 3,000 people in past years. Dawn’s husband, Stuart Surkosky, a Butler chiropractor, is one of the event’s organizational sponsors.
“It’s been the first time we had it in the full event of it,” she said. “Last year, we just did the Cow Patty Bingo, because of COVID, and the year before that, we canceled it.”
The event, which has free admission, raised funds for Butler Catholic School through raffle and bingo tickets.
“We pick a different nonprofit every year,” Surkosky said.
Surkosky thanked volunteers for their work in putting on the event.
“We’ve been really lucky,” she said. “We have a lot of wonderful volunteers. They change year after year, but it always seems to come together.”
Community organizations, nonprofits, first responders and youth groups gathered in buildings and tents on the Butler Farm Show’s grounds for the event.
Brothers Ethan, 9, and Logan Defelice, 4, checked out a booth run by Moniteau Creepers & Crawlers and got to meet a live snake.
“We’ve been here a couple times,” said their mother, Brooke Bridges, of Prospect. “We went to the dunk tank, and we saw the Paw Patrol guys. And we saw a snake!”
Booths in one of the buildings ranged from community nonprofits such as the Lighthouse Foundation to vendors and local businesses such as Specialty Outdoors, which displayed a range of taxidermy animals.
“We’re doing dental education. We have a poster about the sugar in drinks,” said Dr. Elizabeth Ahono Gildersleeve, a dentist from Center Township whose booth featured a display on tooth hygiene. “The kids are showing me how they brush their teeth, and we’re giving everybody toothbrushes.”
Before cows could be herded into the pen for the long-awaited Cow Patty Bingo, members of Boy Scout Troop 19 painted a 500-square grid on the grass for the game.
“They did the rope bridge, and they laid the grid out,” said parent Jason Leslie of Renfrew, whose son, Nathan, 11, is a Scout with the troop. “It will go towards their service hours. They took turns and divided into groups and walked through everything.”
While waiting for the bingo event to start, Joan McGarvey and her granddaughter Azlynn, 7, watched a cow mascot named “Moo-ley Cyrus” greet visitors. Earlier in the day, McGarvey said, Azlynn saw her school’s principal get dunked in the dunk tank.
Megan Kormos, Azlynn’s mother, said she has attended and sometimes volunteered at Kids Day America since it started 22 years ago.
“It’s a good cause,” Kormos said. “It gets the community out.”
“It gives the kids an opportunity to volunteer to do things, too,” said McGarvey. “Which is a good thing.”
The fact that the event itself is free for visitors is encouraging, McGarvey added.
“It doesn’t negate some of those families that can’t come otherwise, which I think is awesome,” she said.
