Limited to selling raffle tickets, Northbrook Days Festival exceeds expectations
A Sept. 30 release by the Northbrook Days Festival announced it raised $38,000 toward community grants and student scholarships from this summer's Grand Prize Raffle.
That total, about half of what a five-day festival would have netted in a good year according to the release, was attained despite the COVID-19 pandemic canceling this summer's event.
With the cancellation came the lack of proceeds from rides, concessions and other activities normally offered during the Northbrook Civic Foundation's sole annual fundraiser.
"That is a very respectable number," said Northbrook Historical Society President Judy Hughes.
"That certainly shows the community support for (the) Civic (Foundation)," she said.
This summer saw a second straight major alteration of the festival. In 2019 Northbrook Festival Days was moved to a Northbrook Court parking lot from its usual spot at Village Green after the Northbrook Park District ruled "significant parts of Village Green off-limits due to soil conditions," stated a Festival Days release dated July 27, 2019.
According to Hughes' records, in its 95-year history - this summer would have been the 96th Northbrook Days Festival - the event had never been canceled, though at least six times it had been held somewhere beside Village Green.
Leading up to this year's Grand Prize Raffle drawing on Aug. 9 - Northbrook residents Katy and Sandie Huberty won the $10,000 grand prize drawing - festival chairman Matt Settler said the 2019 event after expenses awarded approximately $40,000 in grants and scholarships. A post on the Northbrook Days Twitter account said the 2018 festival raised $100,000.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year the festival committee and volunteers buckled down on the task of selling raffle tickets.
"I'm so proud of our organization, everybody stepped up," Settler said in August. His goal had been $30,000, he had said.
The Civic Foundation cited Northbrook's Waterway Carwash as being the largest sponsor of the festival, with each $10 ticket doubling as a certificate for a free car wash. It also thanked the Northbrook Farmer's Market, Ace Hardware, Dairy Queen and the North Suburban YMCA for allowing volunteers to sell tickets at their locations.
A nonprofit volunteer organization initially established in 1907 as the Shermerville Improvement Club, the Northbrook Civic Foundation has raised more than $3.2 million which it has used to fund scholarships to college-bound students and grants to Northbrook organizations.
The Northbrook Days Committee has now turned to organizing its 96th celebration in 2021. A location has yet to be determined.