Imagine you’re a city recreation director. Your whole job is to connect the community with big fun events, and summer is the busiest season. But then a pandemic hits in spring and most of your hard work has to be scrapped.
“Initially it was a shock and we were shutting everything down, not allowing access,” said Chad Wright, Recreation Director for Nibley City. “It was kind of disappointing for me and the community in terms of what we’re normally doing, especially this time of year.”
Community leaders and recreation directors like Wright are struggling to revise treasured summer events for their town, due to social distancing guidelines. Wright’s event, Nibley’s Heritage Days celebration, had to be revised entirely, and the parade and fireworks were canceled. Fortunately, Nibley residents are eager to experiment for the sake of recreation.
“The community seems willing to do things, not just traditional things,” Wright said, “but also something new and different and often willing to take a different approach to accomplish the same thing.”
So Wright brought the Nibley Recreation Department to them. For the Heritage Days “carnival,” residents can rent equipment the department had planned on using and make their own at-home carnival. For a town barbecue, residents are encouraged to all barbecue in their homes at the same time.
“We do hope Nibley smells like an at-home barbecue on every street,” Wright said.
For the annual Heritage Days dance, Aggie radio will broadcast a dance set, and neighbors can play their car radio in the driveway for a united dance party. There’s also a virtual talent show and beard and mustache contest.
It’s a hodgepodge of “together apart” activities sprinkled throughout the month until June 24th. And since it’s not in person, that means anybody is welcome, not just Nibley residents.
