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River Days event to sail this year after all

Local businessman says  festival is back on after  an anonymous donor promises to match funds.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 11:54 PM Wednesday, June 24, 2009

HAMILTON — Great Miami River Days is back on.

“The committee had canceled the event for this year,” said local businessman Tony Traub, chairman of the River Days committee. “We knew we wouldn’t have any money coming from the city and talking to sponsors, we just didn’t feel we could raise the money.”

But after overcoming some personal health issues in early March, Traub had some time to think about it and reconsider the cancellation.

“I started making some calls to our sponsors and an anonymous donor came forward and said they’d make a donation matching dollar for dollar up to $25,000 for the event,” he said.

With that promise in hand, Traub said he’s so far been able to secure $20,000.

The biggest expense in previous years was the cost of bringing in the speed boat races, Traub said, so without that, he felt there could still be a good festival with a $50,000 budget, especially considering the gist of the event was the educational component — to teach people about the need to protect and preserve the Great Miami River.

“We got back in contact with the food vendors and other participants to reconfirm since many of them had already been notified the event had been canceled,” Traub said.

“We had a phenomenal response, so we voted on Friday (June 19) to go ahead and have the festival,” he said. “With the cancellation of September Dayz in Fairfield, we felt even more of a civic duty to have an event because you can’t take everything away from the people.”

The event is now set for Sept. 12 and 13.

There are options open to replace the speed boat races with events equally thrilling but less expensive to present, Traub said.

But there’s still the matter of the remaining $5,000 to raise for the matching grant.

“Small sponsors mean a lot now,” Traub said.

To make a donation to the Great Miami River Days, contact the Hamilton Community Foundation, (513) 863-1717, which has set up a fund.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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These two jokers are no doubt older teens who resent living in the midwest and see no value in any one but their own little clique. They also just might be in need of a nose umbrella as the views they have expressed seem to be from a nose in the air.

Scum
11:14 PM, 6/28/2009

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As one of the Participents I resent being referd to as a "seedy carnival" We spend alot of time on our Historic encampment,making sure we accuratly portray people from the 1700's into the 1860's era.As to the "SCUM " who come out, ALL the People I met were more than polite and nowhere did I see any SCUM.Maybe Jokinright needs to get some new Glass's or a different perspective.

TURKEY
8:02 PM, 6/28/2009

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I agree jokingright! Anytime Hamilton has a event, it seriously drags out the scum of all scum that lives in Hamilton. I personally think this is a pointless thing to have.

seriouslyjokingrt
4:55 PM, 6/25/2009

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Great, shutting down one of our main streets in order to have an event which resembles a bad midway at a seedy carnival. At the last one, I could not tell which there was less of... men with no shirts on or people without teeth. Who the heck is on that committee and what the hell are they thinking?

Jokingright
12:43 AM, 6/25/2009

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