The Eden Prairie Lions Club’s annual Schooner Days festival, which marked its 60th anniversary last weekend at Round Lake Park, took an unexpected twist when a power outage plunged the event into darkness Friday night.
Despite the outage about 10 p.m., which affected a section of Eden Prairie that included the festival, about 500 players in the bingo tent kept their cool.
“Everything was OK, and many people used the flashlight on their phones, so it was an orderly exit by everyone,” said Nancy Vest, the event’s marketing-communications co-manager. “But a startling ending to our first day.”
In an email to members, Lions Club member Gary Stevens described the outage as unprecedented in his 25 years attending Schooner Days. Stevens sent an email each day of the festival with photos detailing the day’s events.
“It will make for pretty good historical stories of ‘Remember when all electricity went out that year at Schooner Days, and we missed the coverall where I think I would have won the $500?'” Stevens said.
The three-day event, buoyed by a picture-perfect Saturday and a Sunday when rain didn’t come until the afternoon, featured longtime favorites such as bingo, a beer garden and carnival rides. Additionally, a pickleball tournament took place at Staring Lake Park on Saturday.
Building on last year’s success, organizers expanded the family-friendly vendor marketplace to include more than 50 vendors, many new to Schooner Days. Offerings included food trucks with Polish pierogies and streusels, pet gifts, clasp-less welded jewelry and custom gnomes.
Attendance was higher this year by about 1,000. Last year, 14,000 people attended the festival.
“It was very, very busy, especially Saturday,” Vest said. “I was there then, and when I walked in, I heard a guy exclaim to his wife, ‘Wow! This is a lot more and a lot better than I expected!’ I heard lots of people comment that ‘This is like the state fair!'”
Lions KidSight USA offered free eye screenings for children ages 6 months to 16 years at Schooner Days, screening 106 kids and making four referrals for follow-up with an eye doctor.
“We had an amazing amount of volunteers and needed them more than ever to keep everything going,” Vest added. “Mike Moriarity, the (festival’s) volunteer coordinator, did an amazing job. Everyone did.”
The Eden Prairie Lions Club, known for its philanthropic endeavors, donates all proceeds from Schooner Days (its biggest fundraising event of the year) to various charitable causes, including the Minnesota Lions Gift of Sight Eye Bank, Minnesota Lions Hearing Foundation, Can Do Canines and True Friends Camp Eden Wood.
Final numbers on money raised during this year’s event will be available in about a week.
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