ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Block parties have been popular for decades and are a great way to spend some time outside.
Saturday, the Liberal Ministerial Alliance and the Youth Hangout hosted a block party in Light Park, and while fun was had throughout the party, the night was ended with Christian singer and songwriter Jake Hamilton taking the stage at the park’s pavilion with a message for young people.
Block party organizer Cory Barnett said Hamilton’s message was everyone has a purpose and a destiny.
“With a lot of young people, I’ve noticed there’s been a shift,” Barnett said. “A lot of young people don’t seem to have a purpose or don’t seem to know their purpose. That’s why they get in trouble. Those who have a dream, those who have a desire to do something are more likely not to get in trouble. They realize getting in trouble could keep them from their dreams.”
Barnett said Hamilton challenges young people to step into their destiny and purpose.
“If they don’t know, find out what it is,” Barnett said. “If they can’t find out by themselves, ask somebody to help. Since I first saw him in that video, I told my kids I’m going to bring him to town. We tried to bring him in 2020. We had it booked. We had the airline tickets. We had everything under way.”
Barnett said Saturday’s block party was something that had been in the works for several years, but when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of life in 2020, the party was put on hold.
“We were still proceeding, and the venue basically said two weeks before he was coming in, sorry, you can’t have it,” he said. “We pulled the plug on that, and I gave up on it for a while.”
Barnett said the idea for a block party came back to life during a recent meeting he attended.
“We were talking about bringing a speaker to this event or an entertainer and speaker,” he said. “He has a band. We were talking and booking somebody. I made the comment that to bring him, we’d have to raise about $500 a day, and the guy said let’s do it. It was actually more than $500 a day we needed to raise. We needed to raise more than $20,000 to do what we needed to do.”
Barnett, though said bringing Hamilton to Liberal became more difficult due to increasing transportation costs.
“From the time we verbally committed to him to the time we sent him the deposit for the airline tickets, the price of the airline tickets went up again,” he said. “The community’s been great. We had several people donate money.”
Barnett said the Liberal community came through and helped the party come together even up until the time it started Saturday afternoon.
“The day before the event, I had somebody call me and say ‘I can bring two inflatables and set them up for you, have them there and donate that,’” he said. “I was super pumped about that. This community, I love it. I’ve lived in other communities, and if it’s for the kids, this community steps up. It’s a very great community for the kids.”
Booths were also in place at Light Park for those who needed to talk or for prayer, as well as Seward County United Way with the Jeep Wrangler to be given away this weekend at SCUW’s Chili and Taco Cook-Off. The Liberal Chamber of Commerce was likewise selling ducks for its upcoming Duck Race Festival, which will also take place this weekend.
“With the network we have, we try to promote them,” Barnett said. “When we help them, they help us. It’s not about me. It’s about the community and what the community needs.”
Plenty of fun for the entire family could be seen throughout Light Park during the block party as well.
“We had some inflatables,” Barnett said. “We had the petting zoo. We had hoverball. Hoverball is a archery booth where a ball is floating in the air, and you shoot it with a bow and arrow. We had the safe ax throwing, which is a velcro bullseye and the axes are actually foam axes. Nobody gets hurt when you throw those. We had archery tag. We had water we gave away. Anytime you do an event like that, you want to make sure people have access to water.”
Churches and restaurants contributed to the cause with ice machines.
“We had a couple of churches that had ice machines that said you can use our ice machine,” Barnett said. “We emptied them. To get more ice, I called a restaurant I have a network with and said ‘Can we snag some ice from you,’ and they said, ‘Yeah.’ I asked them if they wanted recognition. They said, ‘No.’”
Acts such as this, Barnett said, demonstrate the generosity of the Liberal community.
“It lives up to its name, and that’s one reason why I like it,” he said. “The motorcycle rides were a hit. The Harbingers did that. Archery tag was done by the Youth Hangout. As far as food vendors, we had kettle corn.”
Barnett said many vendors had spent hours on their feet, and he checked in with vendors throughout the afternoon and evening.
“I was going to ask Kozie’s Kool Ice how they were doing, and when I went by there to ask them, the line was super long,” he said. “I thought ‘Obviously, they’re doing good.’ They actually had to go get more ice.”
Other food providers at the block party included Lanning Brothers BBQ, Laura’s Kitchen, C & A Lemonade and Cozy Corner.
Barnett said he hopes the people who heard Hamilton’s message Saturday will now be challenged to take a step up with their lives.
“If they know what their destiny is, if they know what their purpose is or if they have direction, they will take the next step,” he said. “The people who know that will be more committed to what their purpose is in helping other people. Those who don’t have a purpose, I would hope they would find it or take that next step in that journey to find it. That was the whole goal, and that’s why the band concert was there at the end.”
Barnett said he was unsure of the exact number of people who came to the block party, but he did say it had a great turnout.
“We did not count the adults, but to get a count, we went back,” he said. “We had everybody sign a waiver. Every waiver that was signed, we added an adult because the adult had to sign the waiver. These numbers are low, but by doing that, we had 1,250.”
Barnett gave thanks to those who helped with promoting the block party.
“I have to shout out to the Leader & Times, KSCB and the schools,” he said. “They were the promotional piece. The schools are great in handing out flyers to the kids and letting them know of activities. We have to get the number to them. That expense was quite high from printing papers, but it was worth it.”
Barnett said on average, he does block parties similar to Saturday’s about once every four years, and typically, they take place toward the end of summer. Monday marked the official start of fall with the autumn equinox, and he said the timing was great for the party.
“It’s August or September because it’s back to school,” he said of when his block parties usually take place. “It’s a way to celebrate the summer and celebrate the school starting even though kids don’t necessarily want to celebrate that.”
Overall, Barnett said he feels Saturday’s party went well, and like all of his parties, evaluations and tweaks will be made in order for continued improvement.
“My highlight was my grandson was here, and I told Jake I wanted his drummer to spend some time with my grandson on the drums,” he said. “My grandson’s 5, and I got a great video of Jake, the drummer and my grandson on the drums. My grandson has rhythm. I put him on the drums at 2 and a half. He’d never been on drums before, and he had rhythm.”
Barnett said parents and grandparents should try to develop the gifts and talents of their children and grandchildren.
“Sometimes, grandparents have the reputation of spoiling the kids and sending them home,” he said. “We should take the reputation of ‘I’m going to leave a legacy, and I’m going to help my children and grandchildren go further than I did.’ All three of my kids exceeded what I had done, and they had done things I wanted to do. They had exceeded me before they were out of high school, and from what I see with my grandson, I believe he will exceed my son in the drumming world, and my son’s pretty good.”
Other churches, organizations and businesses helping with Saturday’s block party included Pizza Hut, Golden Plains Credit Union, Sunflower Bank, Community Bank, the Christ Church of Haskell County, Bank of the Plains, American Title And Abstract, Temple Puerta Del Cielo, McIntire Sound, Epp Construction, Faith Tabernacle Church, First Southern Baptist Church, Action Realty, First United Methodist Church, Keating Tractor, Daylight Donuts, CallCory.com, Luceana’s Party Alterations, Iron Risk Insurance, the City of Liberal, USD 483, Turpin Public Schools, Tyrone Public Schools, USD 480, Simply Good Confectionary, the Carousel Prayer Network, Believers Ministry, the First Nazarene Church, Mosaic, Ashley Furniture, South Church of God, Grace Place Pregnancy Care Center, Trinity Faith Church, KJIL, New Beginnings Church, Iglesia de Fe Restauracion, Centro Familiar, Celebration Nation, the Harbinger Motorcycle Club, the Liberal Senior Center and Friends Church.
