6 THE CHARBONNEAU VILLAGER September 2020
Keeping the fun alive
By PATRICK MALEE
Nonprofi t behind Fun in the
Park adjusts after being hit
hard by pandemic
PMG FILE PHOTO
After the annual Fun in the Park event was
canceled due to the pandemic, organizers
found expenses piling up and created a
September fundraiser to help fill the void.
The dream, in Brady Mordhorst’s
mind, is for two Wilsonville joggers
to run past each other this September
while wearing the same shirt.
Ideally they would stop and say hi,
forming an instant bond over shirts that
read “Run Wilsonville” on the front
with “Run for More” on the back. Replicate
this scene enough, and Wilsonville’s
annual Fun in the Park event will
be on much more stable footing as it
looks ahead to 2021.
Mordhorst, who serves as president
of the nonprofit that puts on Fun in the
Park each year, organized Run Wilsonville
as a fundraiser that ideally will
help offset some of the substantial financial
losses that followed the cancellation
of this year’s Fun in the Park due
to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Run Wilsonville is set up as a monthlong
challenge, with participants signing
up to either walk or run their choice
of three distances: 25, 50 or 100 miles.
The registration fee of $40 will earn participants
a T-shirt and entry into the
challenge, with proceeds going directly
toward Fun in the Park.
“We’re using that as kind of a kickstart
fundraiser to make sure, at least financially,
Fun in the Park can come
back in 2021,” Mordhorst said. “I definitely
have a passion for seeing something
that’s happened this long continue.
Forty-five years of Wilsonville history
is into this organization and I definitely
feel a responsibility to keep it
alive.”
Indeed, Fun in the Park — a free
event in August that features dozens of
activities for kids, live demonstrations,
music and performances — has a history
dating all the way back to 1975, when
it was “Wilsonville Celebration Days.”
The current iteration of Fun in the
Park began in 2000, and it has always
been 100% community-funded.
“We’ve averaged over 9,000 people
attending the event and over 100 different
companies and sponsors that get involved,”
Mordhorst said. “But even with
all that community involvement, it
takes right around $50,000 (each year)
to provide all that free fun at no cost to
the community.”
And while some expenses disappeared
after the event was canceled this
year, others like storage costs, insurance
and filing fees have forced Fun in
the Park to dip dangerously deep into
its savings.
“All of those annual expenses are really
making our savings close to zero,”
Mordhorst said. “That really puts a
strain on looking forward to being able
to do this for the community in 2021 ... or
whenever large-scale events are welcomed
back.”
Mordhorst doesn’t have a particular
fundraising goal in mind for Run Wilsonville,
though he joked that “$50,000 would
be the goal obviously.” Realistically, he
said raising between $5,000 and $7,000
would be enough to “get us going.”
“We start getting bills in February or
March to pay things into August,” he
said. “So we definitely need funds to at
least get started before February or
March of 2021.”
Of course, much remains uncertain
regarding the feasibility of the event
next year — both because no one knows
when large events will be considered
safe again and due to the toll the pandemic
has taken on the local economy.
“The challenge of producing something
like Fun in the Park is because it
is community-funded, and a lot of those
are businesses, I have no idea what the
outlook for that kind of giving will be
next year,” Mordhorst said.
Already, organizers had been seeing
a drop in donations over the past five
years.
“It’s always been in our mind to try
and revamp where we get funds from,”
Mordhorst said. “This might be a thing
that pushes us over the edge to really
do that.”
The nonprofit has looked into grant
possibilities, but Mordhorst said the
simple nature of the event — providing
free fun for kids and families without
any strings attached — makes it difficult
to find the right match.
“We’re not here to study impacts (of
the event),” he said. “It’s one day of free
fun.”
Asking for more support from the
broader community also would go
against the spirit of the event, Mordhorst
said.
“It sort of goes against the mission of
Wilsonville Celebration Days,” he said.
“(We’re here) to provide free fun for the
community.”
That leaves private funding as one of
the only feasible options if Fun in the
Park does indeed shift its model.
“We might have to look into private
funding ... people who are able to fund
something like this out of their own
pocketbook without receiving recognition,
or maybe they have their own private
foundation,” he said.
For now, he hopes people will take
part in the September fundraiser.
“We’re doing this to keep it alive,” he
said.
To register for Run Wilsonville, visit
bit.ly/31asi0y. The challenge begins
Sept. 1.
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