The Hunter Ice Festival is one of the best — if not the very best — events put on in the city of Niles.

The annual event, now in its 10th year, brings around 15,000 people to the city of Four Flags depending on the weather.

That’s a lot of people browsing shops and spending money in our downtown. Lisa Croteau, of Niles Main Street/DDA, said visitors spend around $225,000 in the downtown district during a single festival weekend.

Nothing else comes close to that around here.

Niles’ Juan Ganum, the city’s community development director, may have said it best when he recently described the ice festival as the only time of the year when Niles experiences gridlock traffic.

Considering how much good it does for Niles, we should try and support it by buying at least one Niles-Buchanan Rotary Club raffle ticket this year. The tickets cost $20 and part of the proceeds go back to the Hunter Ice Festival. Just think of it as an entry fee into this otherwise free festival.

There’s always the chance that you’ll purchase the winning ticket good for a $2,000 travel voucher from Signal Travel and Tours.

The DDA/Main Street, which puts on the festival, needs the support. It seems like every year organizers are short on money.

This year is no different.

Croteau said they’ve lost some of their major sponsors and are thousands of dollars behind were they were at this time last year.

The festival costs about $32,000 a year to run with about two-thirds of that coming from sponsorships. The rest must come from elsewhere.

A large chunk of that could be easily made up if everyone buys a raffle ticket.

It’s a small price to pay to make sure one of Niles greatest events is still around for future generations.

 

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Craig Haupert, Ambrosia Neldon, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.