Old Home Days in Newfield looking for volunteers

Thanks to generous donations, the fireworks for Newfield Old Home Days, coming up July 26 and 27, are set to be even bigger than last year. The parade theme is “Roaring ’20s,” and organizers  hope that a large turnout of floats will bring some glitz and glamor to Main Street.

Organizers of the event, which has been occurring annually in the town for about 100 years, are looking for volunteers willing to help make the rest of the festivities possible.

Those who wish to help out with Old Home Days can join the Facebook group or attend meetings, which are posted on the event’s Facebook page.

Volunteers are greatly needed, said Vicki Cody, chair of the Old Home Days Committee, adding that those who would like to pitch in are welcome to call her directly at 607-564-7005.

“It’s hard to get people interested in coming to any meetings and to volunteer,” Cody said. “We have a small committee, but even if people wanted to step up just for the weekend and not any other time of the year, that would be great. We want to let people know that their involvement could be short-term.”

The committee is in need of people who would like to perform even simple (yet crucial) tasks like running one of the carnival games. It’s a frequent topic of conversation at committee meetings, which are held at the Newfield Public Library.

“Even at the meeting last night, we were talking about who is going to run the games,” Cody said.  “We need people to volunteer for a couple hours to run a water balloon game; we have someone who is working on the ping pong ball drop, and I’m sure they could use additional helpers, and if we knew we had a lot of people ready to help, we could commit to probably a lot of other games.”

One of those games is the Cake Wheel, which is traditionally very popular but currently does not have a volunteer or organization that has stepped up to take it on.

“The school owns the wheel, but we have no one to run the wheel,” Cody explained. “If someone from a certain organization in Newfield wanted to organize the soliciting cakes and run the cake wheel, they could use the money for their organization or donate it to an organization. There are all kinds of places the funds could go if they didn’t want to keep the money, and they could decide who gets money.”

Cody said the cake wheel has been such a staple of Old Home Days past that last year more than one person asked her where to drop their cakes off, to which she had to tell them there was no cake wheel that year.

On Friday night, fireworks will be shot off from one of the school district’s athletic fields, making for great viewing from the playgrounds.  

“Being in a hole, there are lots of places in Newfield that you can watch the fireworks from, but we’re hoping that people will be a part of the community and come to the school to watch them,” Cody said, adding that she encourages people to partake in the Newfield Lions Club cookout while they are there.

On Friday, from 5 p.m. until it gets dark, there will also be a coloring contest, a pie contest, a photo contest, a puppet show and workshop, a raptors demonstration and a basket raffle.

The next morning’s events kick off at 11 a.m., with a parade down Main Street that concludes at the schools. The parade is coordinated by the Newfield Lions Club.

“We feel that that is kind of wide open enough that we will get some neighborhood floats or street floats, with neighborhoods getting together and putting together a float,” said Sue Chaffee, Old Home Days committee member as well as a member of the Lions Club.

The Lions Club has added a trophy and a free pizza from Covered Bridge Market to the prize list this year, with the aim of increasing participation.

“We are excited to have the support of Chris Allinger, and he announces our parade,” Chaffee added, “and he’s fantastic.” Allinger will be announcing all of the entries at the end of the parade, at the school, where the largest crowd gathers, Chaffee said.

“He does a great job of announcing every entry,” she added. “It makes for a very exciting event.”

Other activities on Saturday include a coloring contest, featuring local buildings present in the ’20s, the Lions Club food tent, a water balloon fight, corn hole contest, vendors, raffle baskets, a giant slip-and-slide, mini tractor pulls and a chicken barbecue from noon until whenever the food is gone. 

In Brief

Summer Reading Program: ‘Imagine Your Story’

You can still be a part of Newfield Public Library’s Summer Reading Program! And there is something for all ages, from pre-readers to adults. Call or email the library to sign up. You’ll receive a kit every other week with a reading log, activities, book and film suggestions and a few other surprises. At the program’s completion on Aug. 31, there will be a celebration and all participants will receive a free book and chances to win other great prizes. 

If you want to follow the program online, the library will use an application called READsquared that allows you to register, log your progress, complete activities, play games, review books and more! You can use the READsquared website or download the app for Android or iOS. If you do not want to use READsquared, you can call or email your information to the library and they will record it for you.

There are three ways to register:

1. Use the READsquared website or mobile app (see instructions on the library’s website). Parents should register first, then add each child.
2. Email the name and age group for each family member who wants to participate to newfieldlibrary@gmail.com.
3. Call the library at 607-564-3594 and provide the name and age group for each family member who wants to participate, as well as one phone number or email address.