Noxen Fall Festival to help fund community recreation center

Organizers met at the new site for a planned 11,000 square-foot Southern Wyoming County Neighborhood Recreation Center in Noxen. A Fall Festival Fundraiser will be held Oct. 3. Pictured are, from left, first row, Pearl Race, Claudia Hooper. Second row, Russell Newell, Larry Hilbert, Jackie KLiamovich, Rodney Race and Jack Winters.

https://www.mydallaspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_DP-092715-Noxen-rec-center-2.jpgOrganizers met at the new site for a planned 11,000 square-foot Southern Wyoming County Neighborhood Recreation Center in Noxen. A Fall Festival Fundraiser will be held Oct. 3. Pictured are, from left, first row, Pearl Race, Claudia Hooper. Second row, Russell Newell, Larry Hilbert, Jackie KLiamovich, Rodney Race and Jack Winters.

NOXEN TWP. — The first-ever Noxen Fall Fest promises to deliver fun while raising funds for phase three of the Southern Wyoming County Recreation Center.

The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3 at the future site of the Southern Wyoming County Recreation Center on Route 29 South in Noxen Township. Admission is free.

The event will feature over 70 vendors, including the Snooty Fox, Back Mountain Jewelry and Rock Shop, as well as community organizations such as Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge and Girl Scout Troop 33603.

A variety of craft vendors will offer items such as baked goods, bows, tutus, wreaths, jewelry, wood crafts and more, said Kimberly Atkinson, an organizer of the Noxen Fall Fest.

The musical duo, Whisky ‘n’ Wood, will provide entertainment.

Funds raised from vendor fees and a walk-a-thon will go toward supporting the final phase of the SoWyCo Recreation Center project.

Phase three involves building an 11,000-square-foot facility that will house a basketball court, training and weight rooms, a community room and a food pantry.

The final price tag for the completed facility is between $150,000 and $200,000, said Jackie Kliamovich, secretary of the SoWyCo Recreation Committee.

The center will serve a growing population in southern Wyoming County and northern Luzerne County containing an estimated 8,000 residents, Georgette S. Swire, an organizer of the SoWyCo Recreation Center Committee wrote in an email.

About 74 percent of the population is between the ages of 10 and 50, Swire said.

The SoWyCo Recreation Center committee has held several fundraisers, including a summer strawberry social, Kliamovich said.

“We raised about $2,000 from the strawberry social,” she said.

The biggest push the group received was a six-acre land donation from Russell Newell Jr. in 2009, Kliamovich said.

Since then, a half-mile walking trail, a playground and a pavilion were built at the site, located behind the Noxen Food Mart, she said.

Other major contributors to the recreation center’s grassroots effort include Harold and Judy Harding, Pearl and Rodney Race, Jack Winters, Leslie Bullock and Larry Hilbert.