By Melissa Brisco
Staff Writer
Video by Brian O’Connor, KCBY

Each year the bright lights and joyous sounds of the St. Ann’s Community Carnival signify a great beginning to fall. This year, however, the lights were dimmed and the music was muted by the sound of the weekend’s torrential downpour.

The St. Ann’s Carnival, which this year took place Sept 11-13, serves as the church’s main fundraiser, bringing in over $90,000 last year. The funds generally go to one large project with the remainder of the money going to other less expensive projects.

“The Carnival is a pretty big fundraiser for our church,” High school youth minister Naomi LaRue said. “This year, we were going to use the money to renovate the assembly room, as far as the sound system and media and video screens. One year it [the carnival] paid for the new roof.”

Aside from such a beneficial fundraiser, the carnival also is a mean for fostering community interaction. There is something for everyone. For the daredevils and teenagers a wide array of rides spanning from the crazy, spinning ferris wheel to the “octopus”, a conglomeration of rotating machinery upon which carnival-goers ride.

For the shoppers, there were two tents of booths selling items ranging from wooden crosses to doll clothing to original, handmade jewelry. Some more docile rides such as the merry-go-round and the fun house along with a tent full of games appeal to the younger crowd.

The carnival yielded less of a response from the community this year as a result of the unrelenting rain. People did not want to attend the festivities and brave the rides in the overpowering rain.

Carnival volunteers noticed how drastically the affected attendance.

“We’ve worked this ticket booth at the same time for the last three years and ticket sales are down significantly,” volunteers Beth Wagner and Maryanne Southwick said. “Normally, we are really, really busy, but this year, we haven’t seen much action.” 

In spite of the rain people of all ages decided to go out to have fun and support the St. Ann’s Church.

“The carnival was pretty cool,” first time attendant Leanne Bowden said. “If it wasn’t raining, it would be a lot of fun. We came [Friday] but it down poured, and they shut it down. We came back because we bought a bunch of tickets and now we’re using them.”

Students also had a lack of enthusiasm for the carnival this year.

“It [the Carnival] is alright this year, but it’s really wet,” sophomore Dani Hoard said. “We decided to come just to see people. We’re still having fun, somewhat, but we are missing out on the rides because half of them are closed down.”

In spite of the rain, LaRue was still hopeful that the carnival could have been a good fundraiser.

“I don’t think it [the rain] will be detrimental for the church,” LaRue said. “It’s disappointing, because we obviously won’t make as much money as we were hoping for, but people have still been coming out and supporting it – buying raffle tickets and making donations. I think everybody’s still really hopeful.”

Some however, are less optimistic about the carnival’s turnout. Senior Julie Jenner is an active member in the church’s high school ministry program and feels that the church’s finance could be by the lack of carnival attendance this year.

“No one is here except for kids that are completely drenched,” Jenner said. “I’ve been every year and it was exciting because this is the major fundraiser for the church and it’s usually a really big social event, and everyone from school comes and brings their friends and hangs out, but no one is here and the church is spending a lot of money.”