WAPAKONETA, OH (WLIO) - Great holiday memories were being made at the annual Children’s Hometown Holiday.
The event was started 18 years ago with one goal: creating a great holiday experience for kids, and it doesn’t cost parents a thing.
Downtown Wapakoneta was filled with thousands of people and dozens of holiday activities for the event. Kids got to see Santa and got a present from one of his helpers. There were over 100 characters roaming the streets handing out treats and taking pictures with kids. There were horse-drawn carriage rides, pony rides, and face painting, and people had the chance to get autographs and talk to local and state princesses, including Miss Ohio and Miss Teen Ohio. The event was started 18 years ago with one goal: creating a great holiday experience for kids, and it doesn’t cost parents a thing. Now the kids that were there for the first few years are now bringing their children to share the same great memories that they had.
“I got a call from a family in Indiana who wanted to know if she could register her daughter for the tea party, since she'd been at the tea party years ago. And it was so important to her to come back and show her daughter, her three-year-old daughter, what a real Hallmark Christmas is all about in her hometown. It’s a special weekend; it’s a very special weekend,” says Elaine Poppe, founder of the Children’s Hometown Holiday.
Poppe says it takes around 400 volunteers and a year of planning and collecting donations from local businesses and people to put on the free event.
