Fairfield Kiwanis cancels Kids’ Day

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Kiwanis Club will not hold its annual Kiwanis Kids Day celebration this year, another casualty of the novel coronavirus.

The event was scheduled for Sept. 19, the third Saturday in September like it's been for years, but the club decided that attracting a large crowd to downtown Fairfield might not be safe.

The festival has multiple elements, such as a parade followed by a tractor pull with kids' games in Central Park. But the big money-maker from the event is the pancake and sausage feed that usually lasts from 6 a.m. to the early afternoon in the big tent on Court Street. At times, the line to get in stretches all the way down the block.

Claude Brown, head of membership for the club, said Kiwanis feeds about 2,000 people in that tent every year. He said there was no good way to hold the pancake feed while maintaining social distancing, so the club made the tough choice to cancel it.

It's a blow to the club's finances, since the pancake feed brings in about $9,000 every year. It's the club's second largest revenue source, the largest coming from its work registering campers at the Old Threshers Reunion.

Since that has been canceled, too, the club will be out another $12,000 to $13,000.

'We're going to have a zero profit year,” Brown said.

Brown said that, despite these two cancellations, the club is still healthy financially thanks to a 'good chunk of money” bequeathed by a former member who died.

That money will allow the club to meet its commitments for this year, which include five to six $1,000 scholarships and a multitude of other donations to children's charities.

Brown said he's sad the club had to cancel Kids' Day, but the board is planning a 2021 Kids' Day that will be 'bigger and better” than ever before.

'We're going all out next year,” Brown said. 'I think things will be settled by then, and we'll have a vaccine.”

Fairfield Kiwanis rents a building south of Evergreen Cemetery on the north side of town. The club and the cemetery agreed to a five-year lease, with Kiwanis promising improvements if the lease were granted. Club member Francis Horn, along with other members, has fixed up the building by putting in new walls, taking out the old bathrooms, and are about to enter the final step of spray painting the exterior. The club has put in a new steel door and new roof.

Brown said the club is holding its membership steady in the high 30s, with young people rising through the ranks like President Ryan Holthus and others such as Joe Stever and Adam Conilogue.

'The future is looking good for Kiwanis, and I'm happy about that,” Brown said.