New event will recognize community volunteers in Pekin
What is a community without community volunteers?
Whether they are helping build pocket parks and collecting trash, or raising money for educational grants or medical research, unpaid community volunteers have one simple mission: to help improve the communities they live in.
To show local appreciation for their service, the Pekin Main Street Organization has teamed up with the City of Pekin, the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce, and Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman to organize a Pekin Community Picnic and Volunteer Celebration.
“Communities don’t thrive where volunteers aren’t recognized and appreciated for caring about the conditions of their community,” Ackerman said. “Pekin has that, and this is an opportunity for the city, the community as a whole and local businesses to say ‘thank you’ to those volunteers.”
United Way of Pekin Executive Director Heather Robertson, the project lead for the celebration, hopes it will become an annual event. She added that she derived her inspiration for the event from a similar celebration she discovered in Woodstock, N.Y., while she was traveling last summer.
“I was so taken with the idea and the energy it infused into the community,” Robertson said. “I saw how people gathered together around this idea of volunteerism and community, and I saw the way it just permeated the streets to create this incredible welcoming environment. I thought ‘that’s exactly the kind of energy and enthusiasm our community continues to strive for.’”
The Pekin Community Picnic and Volunteer Celebration will take place along the 400 block of Court Street June 17, immediately following the city’s Juneteenth Celebration, which will begin at 10 a.m.
The event will feature music, games, family activities, and a free meal for community volunteers. Amazon, which recently entered the Pekin area’s business community by opening a fulfillment center in North Pekin, donated approximately $3,500 for the event to cover the cost of 300 meals and 100 copies of local historian Carl Adams’ book “Nance: Trials of the First Slave Freed by Abraham Lincoln: A True Story of Mrs. Nance Legins-Costley.”
Pekin businesses Coffee Connection, Yesterday's Bar & Grill, and Maquet's Rail House will prepare the donated meals, and the free books will be available at businesses on the 300 and 400 blocks of Court Street.
“The work of the Chamber would not be possible without our volunteer base,” said Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Amy McCoy, “The Fourth of July fireworks and the Marigold Festival are both hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, and we absolutely run those events with volunteers.”
According to Ackerman, the volunteer celebration will take place each third Saturday in June. More information is available on the Discover Pekin Facebook page.
This article originally appeared on Pekin Daily Times: First Pekin volunteer recognition event to follow Juneteenth gala
