Ox Cart Days Committee Chair Libby Boucher wrote a letter to all the people who helped make Ox Cart Days 2022 a rousing success. Her full letter can be seen below-
Dear Crookston,
As the chair of the 2022 Ox Cart Festival, I’d like to say a giant, heartfelt THANK YOU to you all! This year’s festival was our biggest ever, with 4800 buttons sold, hundreds of visitors, 90 events on the schedule, and 95 unique sponsors. THANK YOU to our sponsors, participating businesses, and clubs all over town for being part of the 2022 festival!
One of the most important factors in this event’s success is the city’s hard work and support. Jake Solberg, Scott Butt, and Brandon Carlson were an absolute pleasure to work with. Their expertise and effort were invaluable. The incredible amount of work put in by their crews: Curt, Maureen, Marcus, and all the Parks and Rec and Public Works crews went beyond above and beyond. Their knowledge and creative ideas helped us streamline and execute all aspects of this huge undertaking. Ashley Rystad was a massive help as we navigated the ins and outs of permitting and paperwork for more food vendors than ever before. I genuinely enjoyed working with her this year. Thank you to the city council, Mayor Stainbrook, and City Administrator Reynolds for always supporting this event and making sure we can pull it off year after year.
As always, there are things we find that we can change, adjust and do better. We finished our survey and have gone over the results and always get some valuable feedback for future festivals. One thing that stood out this year was that we had difficulty finding event participants and volunteers. We had to cancel the talent show for lack of participants and struggled to find teams for water wars. These are beloved events, and we hate to think that we won’t be able to continue. Crookston has a lot of talented people, and we’d love to celebrate them!
Putting on a festival of this size takes a ton of work, time, and energy, and we were desperate for help the week of the festival. While individuals and groups taking on certain events to run eases the burden considerably, there is still a lot of help needed the week of the event. This year, it came down to less than a dozen people trying to run a weeklong festival. I must shout out to Jess Bengtson, Missy Ricord, James Pogatshnik, Dan Erdman, Nell DeBoer, Mark Ecklund, Sheila Menard, Jana Hodgson, Melanie Lessard, and Rae St. Oro for their help, time, and energy. THANK YOU ALL! While we know how busy everyone is these days, we cannot keep up running this wonderful festival with so few people. Even as little as two hours of time during the week would have eased the load considerably. So, as we start the planning of the 2023 festival, I ask that anyone who went to even one event think about giving us some of your time next year. The largest negative feedback expressed in the surveys was “there didn’t seem to be anyone around to help or answer questions” and “there was a lack of helpers around.” Those people are absolutely right. Although we posted requests and links to our volunteer schedule sign-up on multiple social media platforms, the response was extremely limited. Without those volunteers, we simply couldn’t provide the coverage we needed. So, Crookston, I end my tenure as the 2022 chair with this simple statement: If you love this festival and want it to continue to be as special and beneficial to the community as it is, take part and help us out; we would love to have you!
Libby Boucher – 2022 Ox Cart Committee Chair
