Cruise-A-Palooza canceled due to corona virus
Two popular downtown Butler events, the 26th annual Cruise-A-Palooza set for June 28 and the 42nd annual Butler Fall Festival planned for Sept. 19, have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We're not having any of our cruises this year due to the circumstances,” said Ed Schnur, treasurer of Rodfathers of Butler, which organizes Cruise-A-Palooza. “We canceled all of our car shows. All the places where we had cruises wanted to cancel due to the virus.”
He said eight car shows were scheduled this year including shows at Evans City, Saxonburg and the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Butler.
“We heard how devastating it can be for seniors,” Schnur said about the board's decision to cancel the events.
Cruise-A-Palooza draws 1,500 car and truck owners from across the state and country, and many visitors.
“Thousands of people. We pretty much fill up all the streets. Cruise-A-Palooza is our largest cruise of the year,” Schnur said.
He said people from as far away as Texas and Montana have brought cars to the cruise and downtown restaurants benefitted from all the activity in town.
Schnur tracks car shows held in other parts of the country and learned that the Rodfathers aren't alone.
“Car clubs across the country are canceling shows,” he said. “We enjoy it. We enjoy working on our cars. We like talking to people. It brings the community together. It helps downtown businesses It's a good day for them.”
The Rodfathers are looking forward to a better summer next year.
“Everything planned for 2020 we're just going to plan for 2021,” Schnur said.
Donald Shearer said the same thing about the Butler Fall Festival.
“We have every intention of the festival being back next year on Main Street,” said Shearer, festival president.
The decision to cancel this year's event was made due to the withdrawal of sponsors.
“It's all pretty much economic. We've been slowly losing sponsorship commitments for the last few weeks. The last one pulled out last week,” Shearer said.
The festival board of directors decided to set aside a portion of the festival's funds for plans or commitments already made by other entities for satellite events that were going to take place on the day of the festival.
Local organizations or businesses that want to hold a small event open to the public on Sept. 18, 19 or 20 can request funding from the board.
“Even though we can't hold the festival, we'd like to see as many of those little events as possible,” Shearer said.
Organizations wishing to hold events can contact Shearer at dshearer@ccaeducate.me.
