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Community Corner

Riverdays Draws 2,000 for a Day of Games, Music and Duck Racing

Organizers say they hope the second-annual event raised $12,000 for redevelopment of the Plainfield riverfront.

Organizers of this weekend’s are hopeful that a stop by the riverfront park will get people involved in efforts to restore it.

Some 2,000 people were estimated to have dropped by the Riverdays fundraiser Saturday. The festival featured everything from mini-golf and bounce houses for the kids to mud volleyball and a duck race on the DuPage River.

The festival started last year as a way to raise money to and what was once .

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“I think it’s a good idea,” said Kristin Wagner, a Plainfield woman who came to the festival Saturday with her family. “It will bring more people downtown.”

The Plainfield Riverfront Foundation recently exceeded $100,000 in its fundraising efforts for the project, which will transform roughly 44 acres of riverfront property.

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The group plans to hold a ground breaking ceremony for the first phase of the project – expected to cost $600,000 – sometime next month. That project will focus on restoring property just south of Lockport Street on the west side of the river.

Other plans for the riverfront property include trails, a grand pavilion where the original auditorium for Electric Park once stood and a . The project, which members of the Plainfield Riverfront Foundation agree is ambitious, will be completely funded through donations or other partnerships.

“This will be really beautiful,” said Plainfield Village Trustee Jim Racich. “It will be Central Park to Plainfield.”

Others agreed.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Plainfield resident Gary Prester, who was enjoying the event with his wife, Helen, and their 2½-year-old granddaughter, Eleanor. “We’re anxious to see the restoration.”

Riverdays kicked off Friday with a backyard barbeque dinner fundraiser that drew about 70 people. Saturday’s events were estimated to draw somewhere between 1,200 to 2,000 people.

“We love being outside,” said April Kundid, of Plainfield.

She, too, was looking forward to seeing a restored riverfront in her hometown.

“We used to go to Naperville’s riverwalk all the time,” she said. “It’s nice to see something like this happening close to home.”

Last year, Plainfield Riverdays raised about $12,000, said Rob Epley, foundation president. The group hoped to raise at least that much again from this year’s event.

Epley said the group plans to erect a community thermometer sign in the near future to help show how much the group has raised for the project and how much is still needed.

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