GREENFIELD– Grinning from ear to ear with a Super Soaker in one hand and a mound of bubbles on her head, 3-year-old Ellie Sweet looked like the poster child for summertime fun.
Sporting a pink top and shorts with matching pink Crocs, the toddler gleefully shot streams of water at kids whipping down a 220-foot-long waterslide in Greenfield’s Riley Park Saturday night.
More than 1,200 kids and parents flocked to the park for the latest Glow in the Park event hosted by the Greenfield Parks Department from 8-10 p.m.
About 750 of those in attendance took turns shooting down the bright yellow slide, cascading down the hill commonly used for sledding in the winter.
It was a huge jump in attendance from the first two Glow in the Park events, when 485 people attended in 2022 and 500 attended in 2023.
“It was wild,” said Madison Ritchison, Programs & Events Specialist for the Greenfield Parks.
Younger children danced around in a sea of suds being pumped from a bubble machine atop a tractor at the base of the hill, while others played a variety of lawn games like oversized Connect Four set up in the shade.
String lights attached to wooden poles set in the ground illuminated space along the length of the slide.
As the sun began to set, black lights were switched on and glow-in-the-dark headbands, bracelets and glow sticks were passed out to the crowd, putting the glow in the Glow in the Park event.
“It’s pretty awesome that Greenfield does stuff like this,” said Ellie’s mom, Jessica, taking a break from helping her daughter squirt water onto the slide.
Just moments earlier, Chris Strubbe landed at the bottom of the hill with a splash, with his 6-year-old son Isaiah on his lap.
The father and son were among the first to enjoy the new waterslide Saturday night, since their family showed up early to snag a place in line.
About 30 people were already in line when their family showed up around 7:30 p.m., but Strubbe said it was worth the wait to ride the slide.
“I thought it would be a blast and it was,” he said, his glasses fogged up and water dripping from his shorts.
His daughter Rose, 7, was equally soaked and stood alongside him shivering in her swimsuit, anxious to know when she could take another turn.
So many people turned out for the Glow in the Park event that many only got one chance to ride, said Greenfield Parks director Ellen Kuker.
Still, the parks staff considered the event a major success.
Some staffers spent the evening running alongside the slide, giving an occasional push to those who got stuck and making sure the slide stayed slippery, while others transported the tubes back to the top of the hill in a utility vehicle rigged up with PVC pipes to hold the tubes.
While this is the city’s third Glow in the Park event, it was the first year for the parks department’s new yellow waterslide, an investment made after the previous handmade slides only lasted one night each.
“The first year we made a makeshift slide with some plastic and it worked well, but by the end of the night it was starting to fall apart,” said Kuker.
“Last year we revamped the slide using an industrial plastic and it held up longer, but by the end of the night it was done and couldn’t be reused. That’s when we decided it was such a popular event that we needed to look at other options instead of hand-building a new slide each year,” she said.
The new commercial-grade slide was purchased with funds from a number of sources, said Kuker, including the parks department’s general donation fund and proceeds from last year’s Turkey Day 5K.
Other support came from individual donors as well as Center Township, which donates some money to the Greenfield parks each year.
Kuker was happy to see so many people turn out to enjoy the new slide.
“Anytime we can offer a unique event that is safe and family friendly, it’s worth the investment,” she said.
The slide will be used at this year’s Kids Camp hosted by the parks as well as the Hancock Boys & Girls Clubs’ summer camp, and parks officials are mulling over when to host another Glow in the Park event.
“Glow in the Park is a really unique event that’s not offered in a lot of communities, which is probably why we have such a high turnout,” said Kuker, who was thrilled to see Saturday’s event draw a record crowd.
Her staff went above and beyond in personally testing out the new slide a few days before the event, she said with a smile, and most took one last turn late Saturday before packing the bright yellow slide away at the end of the night.
