The third annual JeepFest Endless Summer Edition 2021, which took place near Meath Park in the RM of Garden River, was chance to give people some family friendly fun and celebrate off roading.
Jeep Saskatchewan held the event between July 8-12, and it turned out just how organizers hoped.
“To hold it at all is a genuine pleasure and then having a turnout where people are excited to be here is better,” Candice Babcock of Jeep Saskatchewan said. “I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of people to help us, and (the) sponsors and support and timing and everything fell into place.”
The weather on Friday and Saturday proved to be a challenge before the heat decreased on Sunday.
Saturday’s event also included Band Aid, a festival style concert which raised funds for the Garden River and Buckland fire departments who assisted with the Cloverdale Fire in May. They also raised funds for the Prince Albert Safe Shelter.
“With the fires in May, I think that smaller departments got a glimpse of what they need for support and I think that they deserve a few upgrades,” Babcock said. “We are hoping to do as much as we can for them to help them upgrade a little. They did an amazing job with what they have and we want to give them the ability to do it better.”
The RM of Garden River is located near the fire site. Babcock said they had to drive by the damage to get to their location, which made them realize just how important rural fire services are.
“When we were deciding who to donate to this year it was not even a contest,” she explained. “We knew that they needed help.”
The schedule for the Band Aid included Brayden King, Ten02, Grim, Blues Bandeleros, Rose Valley, Boo Radley, Scarlet Serenity, Dirty Garden, Hipnotic, Brock Andrews, Dead Levee, Econoline Crush and Dan Davidson.
“We are hoping that everybody has a really great time tonight because we all deserve it and we all did really good to get here and we all deserve a little bit of fun as a reward,” Babcock said.
The 2020 JeepFest would have been their second annual event, but organizers were forced to cancel due to COVID-19. The 2021 event is technically only the second time spectators have been out to the site, but Babcock said they’re sticking with calling it the third JeepFest.
“It is theoretically the third,” she said. “We hung in there and we persevered and we pushed through and we made it work. We are hoping to continue to do this and maybe donating to different things every year. I genuinely love supporting fire departments, police departments, anything to do with helping those that need it.
“I know the fire departments, especially this time of year, are so busy, and it’s not getting any better. They need help and they need support and I hope that this brings to light the things that they need,” she added.
Babcock said the JeepFest concept came about because the family has five children and was looking for a family friendly way to have an event. They wanted something that was kid and family friendly, and helped everyone have a genuinely good time.
“There wasn’t anything like that, so in 2019 we said, ‘well why don’t we just do it,’ and we did. We had a really great turnout for a small event. We didn’t know what we were doing then,” she explained.
The year off gave them a chance to fine tune the event after planning the 2019 event as a first try.
Sunday was the Family Day at JeepFest and included bounce houses, face painters and a family friendly trail run and concluded with a movie night.
“It’s good enough the kids can go down and maybe splash a little bit if we get enough rain, maybe just a sprinkle to make it wet. And we are just going to have a nice family movie night at the end of the day too. I really hope that people take to this because I want to keep doing it. There are not a lot of family friendly things like this that are here and that are local,” she said.
The plan did not even originally include the Band Aid aspect, but the organizers decided that a benefit concert would be the best way to operate.
“We had 30 days to plan this entire event,” Babcock said. “We don’t do this for a living, we are not event organizers by any sense of the word, but we pulled this off. We had some great help and support and I think having people behind you that believe in what you are doing is the best thing to happen,”
Events included Mayhem in the Mud, the Show it Off Show N’ Shine, Test Your Flex, the Extreme Mudrun along with other family friendly parts like face painting, food trucks and the movie night.
She thanked the many sponsors including Trudel Autobody, Anderson Motors and all of the numerous gold and other sponsors who were too many to list and especially the RM of Garden River and the landowner who allowed the event on their property and countless others.
“The RM is fully supportive of us, the property owner I am not going to say her name, but she knows who she is, the property owner who just let us do whatever we wanted,” Babcock said.
“I think it worked out and everything happens for a reason, I am a believer in that, especially after this because everything fell into place. It almost was destiny sort of because everything happened when we needed it to happen happened when we needed it to happen.”
