SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome, Boomer listeners. I'm Peggy Sweet and this is Belonging in the Bluffs, brought to you by the Iowa West Foundation. I'm joined in studio once again with my good friend Connie Cassen. She is a chair of the Friends of West Fair here to give us information on the fair. What's new? Hi, Peggy. It's good to be back. It's great to have you back. I shouldn't say what's new. I already know what's new. The fair's what's new.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

The fair's coming. Yes. Yeah. West Fair 26 is is coming on hot. So fair 26 starts July 22nd. Wednesday night at 7 is Queen Coronation. Ooh, yeah. We have the Tractor Poll on Friday. Ooh, yeah. Um, and we have Figure 8's on Saturday, uh the 25th. And the demo derby is back on Sunday night. Yeah. Yeah. And memberships are available this year. You can get them at Fair at BombGars, American National Bank, Frontier National Frontier Bank. So you can buy memberships any of those places, and that gets you into the arena. And then there's lots of the other activities with 4-H'ers and FFA members who are exhibiting their stuff. Right. You've got a huge building full of that stuff. We do. We do. We have static exhibits. So you'll see cool projects about leadership development, as well as, you know, the muffins and the art projects and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

And all the things that are going to be going to the Iowa State Fair, right? This right time. It is. It is. It's a hot competition. And then something that could be really exciting. I'm going to, I'm all I'm going to say is flag, but I'm going to let you take it from there. Yeah. So tell us about what could be happening here.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So we just celebrated the country's 250th birthday, but it's not all the way over. West Fair's going to be celebrating the same. So our goal is to have 250 unique donors by the end of fair on Monday, July 27th. And so we'll raise a flag day by day with the number of donors that we have to our capital campaign.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

That's pretty exciting. And like you were saying, uh, I believe last segment, every dollar counts. It doesn't sound like $25 goes very far, but if you think about it, it might be it might be a chair. It might be the light. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

And we have the match from the Iowa West Foundation. So every $25 turns into $50. And those $50s add up to fences and lights and chairs. And let's talk about air conditioning and pretty bathrooms and things that will blow your doors off. Right. So if we want to make a donation, how do we do that? Best way is to go to Westfair.org slash spirit of Westfair. We have a partnership with the Community Foundation for Western Iowa. They're helping us with all of our paperwork and accounting, which is great because we have a volunteer board and this is this is a lot of work. So we let them do what they're great at, and we're so happy to have this partnership with them. So westfair.org slash spirit of Westfair will connect you to the community foundation site. You can make a donation there for one time or once a year or once a month or whatever works for you and your family.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

It's just another reason to live in Love Council Bluffs. All of these incredible partnerships that we get to be involved with.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

It's been so fun over the last couple of years of just hearing stories of all the people who love Westfair and have these incredible memories for, you know, more than 50 years now of the ways that the city and the county come together. And people, especially the youth development side of things, I think that's really um it's a big part of my why of why I give so much time to this cause I love. Yeah. Um, but also just a chance to see the best of what kids are working on. And it's it's a place unlike any other, this side of the river or the other side of the river, where people, you know, community is built and people connect in different ways than they do in any other space. Absolutely. No place like West Fair.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Absolutely not. No place like Council Bluffs either. That's right. All right, Connie. Um, I will have you back right after the fair and we can talk about that flag and we'll see how many donors you got. I bet you're gonna exceed the 250.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I sure hope so. That'll be great. Thanks, Peggy.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

This has been Belonging in the Bluffs, brought to you by the Iowa West Foundation.