Color Blast a fun weekend activity to support Harmony Parks
HARMONY — Four members of the Dishong family attended the Color Blast Fun Run Saturday, Aug. 15, dressed in tie-dye shirts and bandannas, which would only get more colorful by the end of the 5-kilometer course.
The Color Blast Fun Run is an annual event by Harmony Parks that happened for the third time Saturday at Sippel Reservoir Park. The 5K course not only took participants through a route that showcased the park and its trails, but gave them a newly dyed T-shirt that got more colorful the farther they got.
“It’s our first time being here,” said Chriss Dishong, of Lancaster Township. She attended the Color Blast with her husband, Bob Dishong, daughter, Dani Dishong and granddaughter, Kayla Jones. “Our friends were coming, we came with them.”
People who registered for the fun run ahead of time received a white race T-shirt, which most of the participants put on before lining up at the balloon arch starting line. The fun run was not timed, and many people walked the course that took them through five stations where volunteers with Harmony Parks would shower them with colorful powder.
Jennifer Janssen, with Harmony Parks, said the Color Blast forgoes timing participants in favor of letting them set their own pace to enjoy the course and its colors.
“It’s for fun as opposed to competitive,” Janssen said before the race began. “It’s a fundraiser for the parks, the trail.“
Janssen and Susie Altemus, another member of the Harmony Parks board of directors, said the borough’s parks are not directly funded by Harmony, but by fundraisers and donations that come out of events like the Color Blast.
According to Janssen, about 160 people signed up for the Color Blast this year, surpassing last year’s total of about 125 registrants. She chalked that up to the cloudy weather Saturday, and to the word-of-mouth the fun run has built up in the three years since it was first conceived in Harmony.
And the fun run was just one portion of the event, which was scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Sippel Reservoir Park. Janssen said the color toss party scheduled to take place once most people finished the course is a highlight of the event, in which everyone can toss colors around to fully engulf their clothing with new tints.
“It’s fun to watch the kids do it, they love it,” Janssen said of the color toss.
But most of the participants would be caked in colored powder by the time they passed through the finish line. Each color station had several people throwing the powder on fun run participants as they went by.
Three girls from the Grove City area finished the race relatively early, holding hands as they passed under the balloon arch. They were Aleah and Arianna Morgante and Kenzie Kershaw.
Aleah said the Color Blast was an activity she and her sister were looking forward to.
“The fun run, it was something fun to do,” said Aleah.
