An island woman and Vashon’s chamber of commerce are in talks to bring a carnival to next year’s Strawberry Festival after the woman’s online fundraising petition circulated on social media.
Adrienne Forest, the woman behind the VASHON R.O.C.K.S (Return Our Carnival to the Kids) GoFundMe page, believes that the lack of a carnival for the past three festivals has “frozen the children out of the festivities,” she wrote on the page’s description.
“The children, parents and caring folks of Vashon have decided to resolve this issue as a community. Businesses and individuals are raising the funds to hire the carnival back with the goal beginning in the summer of 2017,” Forest wrote.
Since creating the page on July 15, during this year’s festivities, Forest said she has raised more than $1,000, with donations from Vashon Market IGA, Sporty’s, Denise Scaffidi and “other smaller donations.”
However, chamber officials have since reached out to Forest and said that having a carnival goes beyond monetary issues. The chamber is in the process of potentially creating a carnival committee headed by Forest.
“At this point I have held off the fundraising in an effort to work with the chamber who has told me that money is not the issue,” Forest said Monday. “If the chamber isn’t able to work through the obstacles, we will continue our effort. I will give the chamber a chance to assure me they’ve got it handled with or without me.”
Since 2014, the annual summer festival has been without a carnival. Due to last-minute, unsuccessful contract negotiations between the Vashon-Maury Island Chamber of Commerce and the amusement company, the carnival was cancelled that year. According to Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jim Marsh, the carnival contract that year “would have put the chamber at too much financial risk.” Amusement company officials said that logistical difficulties were also a challenge to the carnival.
For many years, rides such as a ferris wheel, spinning chair swings and other classic carnival amusements occupied empty fields and parking lots in multiple places around town. Construction on one such place in 2013 — the previously empty field behind the Vashon Village that now houses the Lodges on Vashon — caused the carnival to be moved to the Vashon Plaza parking lot in front of Vashon Market IGA in the carnival’s final year.
A rock climbing wall and a few inflatable structures were brought to the festival and placed in front of the Chamber of Commerce to replace the carnival in 2014. A necessary quick-fix replacement for the full-fledged carnival in years past. Festival organizers have since steered away from hiring traditional carnival companies and stuck with an alternative carnival model that includes the offerings found at the 2015 and 2016 carnivals: a mechanical bull, rock wall, inflatable bubbles to play inside and bounce houses.
Marsh said last week that he is open to the idea of bringing a full-fledged carnival back, but “there are realities to what actually can be done.”
“I look at this effort as supportive even if it comes across as critical of us,” he said. “Who knows? There may be options that I haven’t been able to find. There may be doors that get opened which were closed before. Ultimately, I am glad to have people engaged.”
He continued to explain that while there are potential spaces for carnival rides — the field behind Vashon Market IGA, Island Home Center & Lumber’s parking lot or the gravel driveway behind The Rock — all are private property and have severe limitations to them. The use of the property and the liabilities have to make sense to the owners.
Marsh also said that unincorporated King County has “very restrictive codes on the placement of rides” and require more space than other areas in the county.
Chamber board president Melissa Schafer seconded Marsh in saying that the chamber staff and board have spent much time exploring the idea over the past few years, but continue to “run into the same roadblocks” with carnival operators who can’t justify it financially. She said she appreciates the conversation that Forest’s effort has sparked.
“As a member of the board, I want to weigh in and speak specifically to the Facebook discussion organized by Adrienne Forest seeing it as an effort created with good intentions that has further sparked conversation surrounding interest in bringing the carnival back,” she said last week. “I feel that both Adrienne and the chamber see this as a great opportunity to join efforts with others in the community and local organizations with the same goals to explore the components involved to make Strawberry Festival Carnival 2017 a reality. Perhaps we can create a proposal that would work for all involved.”
Shafer said the GoFundMe page and ensuing discussion is only the beginning of a conversation to “a very involved planning process.”
“There is much energy and enthusiasm that can be found within the supporters. I think the chamber’s role as the event organizer and insurer will help such a group tie together the big picture details and negotiating that will have to take place with any interested parties,” she said.
