Hampden reflects on loss of event

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HAMPDEN – Each summer as he watches his friends go their separate ways, 7-year-old Nicholas Lister is mindful that on the third Saturday in August, Children’s Day will bring him and his buddies together again.

“It’s a chance for him to see everyone before school starts,” said his mother Jessica Lister.

But since the annual fling was cancelled this year, Nicholas will have to find another way to connect with his pals.

Lister, who hasn’t yet broken the news to her social young son, anticipates the reaction.

“He’ll be disappointed,” she said.

Members of the Children’s Day Committee hope others also will be dismayed – at least enough so that they offer to step up to the plate and help plan next year’s event.

A shortage of volunteers has left the committee with no choice but to cancel, according to members who said this week in a Bangor Daily News letter to the editor that each year the work falls on the same group of seven or eight people who now feel burned out.

“The most telling thing about all of this,” Don Darling, who composed the letter, said Thursday, “is that when I first started in the late ’80s, the nearer you got to Children’s Day the bigger the crowds were.

“The week before we would have three dozen people show up,” he said. “Last year we just had the core group,”

Committee members said this week that a miscommunication about the availability of McGraw School – which provides kitchen facilities and electrical service – helped put the kibosh on the event.

By the time they found out that the building’s refurbishing would not interfere with Children’s Day, it was too late to make plans.

Meanwhile, another free community family event is planned to tide residents over.

“Happy 225th USA” will take place 6-9:15 p.m. Monday, July 9, at the Weatherbee and McGraw schools, including a picnic, static parade display, Kiwanis field games and booths, entertainment, music and fireworks.

The event is sponsored by the Hampden Happy Birthday USA Committee, the Hampden Retired Firefighters Association, Hampden Recreation Department, Blue Hill Pyrotechnics and others “aghast that there’s no Children’s Day,” said Rick Briggs, an owner of Blue Hill Pyrotechnics.

“Organizers aren’t looking to replace Children’s Day,” said Briggs, who helped organize the first event 23 years ago.

“We don’t want to discourage [the Children’s Day Committee] in any way; we hope they’re successful in regrouping and getting reorganized,” he said. “We’re just trying to provide the town with a special event so kids don’t go all summer without fireworks.”

A lot of people are upset that the regular summertime gathering was canceled, according to Children’s Day Committee member Lori Cropley.

But they need to understand “how much work it is … that it takes more than eight people to put the day on,” she said, recalling the year’s worth of fund raising, the booking of bands and the arranging of insurance.

With a budget that has hovered around $30,000, Children’s Day includes a parade, barbecue, fireworks, horse show, field activities and booth games. The event has become an institution, drawing people from out of town and even other states.

Residents this week offered their collective take on the self-imposed hiatus.

Planners never had problems getting volunteers “because of our ideals – it wasn’t a job, it was done because people wanted to, not because they had to,” said Ed Murphy, who was a firefighter when he and other members of the Public Safety Employees Association helped get the first Children’s Day off the ground.

The group spent $600 on the three-hour event that was called Children’s Night and that was “nothing more” than the Anah Temple Shrine Band who donated their services; free ice cream; and a small fireworks show, said Murphy, an owner of Blue Hill Pyrotechnics.

Today, the group’s expectations are too high, according to

Murphy. “People feel they have to have a certain of amount of money in the budget. We were going to do it no matter what. If there was no budget for a parade and five units showed up because they wanted to, it was better than 100 units we had to pay for.”

Part of the problem may be that many residents don’t know about “the old volunteers who put in all kinds of time,” said Town Councilor Don Muth.

“When something goes on for 20 years, you lose track,” said Muth who brought his children to the event every year.

When they were older, they’d go on their own, meeting friends who also had been lured by the dunk tank, the hot dogs and strawberry shortcake and the field activities, Muth said.

Ruthann Bryer, who also worked on the early celebrations, said the event used to be “a true old-fashioned kind of day – we never allowed anything political or religious or controversial. This was just geared toward the kids having a good time.”

Retired Hampden Academy teacher and guidance counselor, Ruth Stearns recalled that people who moved away return each summer to meet old friends at the annual gathering.

“There were always large crowds,” Stearns said. “We’d fall all over each other trying to find a seat for the fireworks.”

For Assistant Superintendent Emil Genest, there’s no underestimating the importance of Children’s Day.

“It’s like the World Series to this community,” he said.

Meanwhile, committee members are hopeful that next year’s event will be a go. The McGraw School Parent Teachers Organization already has offered to help, they said.