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NILES — After facing initial disappointments at a city council meeting, the Riverfront Optimist Club of Niles faced another blow to its planning of the Family Fun Fair and Music Festival, formerly known as the Bluegrass Festival.

The next challenge the club faced came in the form of the coronavirus pandemic. On March 24, the club announced that members had officially canceled the 2020 festival. Now, the club is regrouping with the hopes of bringing the festival back in 2021.

On March 9, members of the Riverfront Optimist Club of Niles went before the Niles City Council with their requests to host the annual festival. The city council voted to deny requests from the club 5-1. The vote was a disappointment to club members and to many Niles residents who look forward to the annual event.

Concerns raised from city council included the Riverfront Park’s condition after the festival is over, fights that occurred during the festival in the past and funding. After the Riverfront Optimist Club of Niles was handed the council’s vote, members planned to regroup and find a new way to host the festival.

The next day, Josh Sitarz, president of the club, hosted a meeting to discuss the way forward in planning the annual festival dear to many Niles residents. Mayor Nick Shelton and council member Jessica Nelson were among those in attendance at the meeting to look for solutions.

Just two weeks later, the club decided that it was best to cancel the festival for the year.

“Once the pandemic — the coronavirus — came around, I went on Facebook and saw all of these other festivals being canceled. Some all the way out to August and September,” Sitarz said. “At our next meeting, I brought up to see if we should even try to put all this effort into finding a new location [for the festival]. When the time comes, we may not even be able to have it.”

While the club had discussed alternative solutions to hosting the fair and festival, and had considered input from Shelton and Nelson, they knew hosting the festival this year would still be difficult.

“There was one idea of just having the Bluegrass Festival, with just music and a few local vendors,” Sitarz said. “There were some other locations where we could move the carnival to, or move the whole festival. It would be difficult to do it, but I know the people of Niles would still support us with whatever we did.”

Sitarz remains optimistic that the club will bring the festival back when it is able.

“I know that we have been discussing that when the coronavirus is done, maybe [hosting] something later in the year,” Sitarz said. “We can’t plan a festival with regulations still growing and going up and down. We just have to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have to stay in this together.”

Sitarz reflected that the festival planning was not the task he thought it would be.

“I think, especially for my age and being only 18, I never thought this would happen,” he said.

In the meantime, Sitarz has worked to keep spreading cheer through the community.

The club had plans to distribute 30 Easter baskets for children at The Rage. When that plan had to be shifted due to the virus, Sitarz teamed up with Tom Majerek, who has been with the bluegrass festival since its inception, to distribute the Easter baskets themselves.

“We got in contact with the people that needed them [Easter baskets],” Sitarz said. “I dressed up as the Easter bunny, and we went door to door and left them outside. We were able to do something for them in these tough times.”