Fate of Freedom Fest in Pendleton uncertain this year

PENDLETON — Freedom Fest, Pendleton’s patriotic summer celebration, will not happen this year unless a new organizer steps in.

The event has been held 1990 on the Saturday before July 4 at Veterans Park, with fireworks, vendors, games and live music.

Friends of the Park, an organization that raises money and takes care of Veterans Park, recently voted against organizing and being the lead sponsor of the event. So far no one has contacted Pendleton Town Hall about planning Freedom Fest, said Amber Barnes, interim town administrator.

On Feb. 6, the Pendleton Town Council approved Friends of the Park’s request to dedicate the $2,500 budget for Freedom Fest to the Step Up to the Plate fundraising campaign to renovate the park’s ball fields.

The group reluctantly gave up planning Freedom Fest, said Friends member Nancy Hellams.

“It was a hard decision because we always felt very good to be able to provide that for the community,” Hellams said. She was chairwoman of Friends of the Park and Freedom Fest for three years, but stepped down in January to take a break from such time-consuming projects.

About 100 volunteers and more than 25 sponsors make Freedom Fest happen every year. Finding enough volunteers for the event is not a problem for Friends of the Park, Hellams said, nor is money. But the June heat is brutal to older Friends members who man stations all day.

“People usually are willing to be help out, but we’ve gotten older,” Hellams said. “It wasn’t that we don’t want to do it. We just aren’t able to anymore.”

No other members expressed desire to pick up organization, she said.

Organizers plan entertainment and secure vendors, sponsorships and a pyrotechnics company to shoot fireworks. About 3,000 people come to the event each summer.

“I think a lot of folks are going to miss it, but it was a tremendous amount of work,” said Pendleton Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Kalley.

The town started Freedom Fest 22 years ago in honor of its bicentennial. In 2004, budget strains led the town to pass the main sponsorship and organization to Pendleton Home Builders for three years. Pendleton Home Builders approached Friends of the Park in 2008 to take over and over four years the group has raised more than $10,000 through Freedom Fest to renovate Veterans Park.

The American Legion Post 113 donates some money toward Freedom Fest each year, said member Jimmy Manley, but renovations to the post will overshadow taking over Freedom Fest responsibilities.

“We’ve been raising money ourselves to refurbish the building up there,” Manley said. “I hope somebody does pick it up.”

Past organizer Rick Moore of Pendleton Home Builders said the same thing.

“I’d hate to see it die because we put so much effort into it,” he said. He and business partner Fred Hamilton used some of their own money to fund Freedom Fest, but he declined to say how much. Moore said that at this point he and Hamilton would not consider being main organizers, but that they would help out in a smaller way.

The event has grown from a simple festival to one with a fireworks show rivaling ones held in Anderson and Seneca, Moore said. The town council allocated $5,000 to Freedom Fest in 2009, but by this year the amount was cut in half. Kalley said it’s possible that new organizers could receive town funding.

“They have to come to the council and ask and we would just have to look at it,” he said.

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Fate of Freedom Fest in Pendleton uncertain this year