For those following the Hands Across Kosciusko County, you’ll know that not only did the Big Hands travel in nine different community parades as Hands On Parade, they also made appearances at many other events as well throughout the summer.
Hands Across Kosciusko was introduced as a community art project to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Warsaw/Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce.
The hand was chosen as the subject of the sculpture to allow communities in the county to “join hands” to signify unity and strength.
A total of 19 sponsors throughout the county pulled together to decorate theirs in their own unique way.
The original sculpture was created by Steve Perry, artist of Steve Perry Creations in Pierceton, and each one was then manufactured by Splendor Boats in Silver Lake.
Lake City Bank and Kerlin Motors worked together to design a flatbed on which the sculptures could be mounted and transported.
The Big Hands have been pulled throughout the county to different events and through parades by the Lake City Bank festival truck.
As part of the fun, the chamber created a county-wide contest encouraging folks to travel to different parts of the county to attend each community’s parade.
The game involved a wooden token unique to each of the nine communities having parades.
Each community’s token was given out only at their parade.
After the last community parade, which was the Pierceton parade on August 6th, folks collecting all nine unique tokens brought them as a set to the Chamber to enter the contest to win a gift package from the Kosciusko Convention & Visitor’s Bureau valued at over $200. We had several entries. After all the entries came in, one of the entries was picked.
Janet Farrington, of Pierceton is the winner of the contest. She said that she and her two children, Kiah, 6, and Winston, 2, enjoyed going to the parades.
They only missed two of the nine, but picked up the missing tokens at the respective Lake City Bank branches after each of those two parades. She said that she and her kids loved going to the festivals and seeing the hand chairs.
Even though the contest is over, the Big Hands are still scheduled to appear at many events to come.
One is the Play It Safe Family Safety Day at Center Lake on Saturday, September 10th.
They will be in the local 9/11 Patriot Day Remembrance Parade, and they will be a featured item at the Taste & Trade Expo 2011, on October 21 & 22nd at the Orthopaedic Capital Center at Grace College.
For more information about Hands Across Kosciusko, the Warsaw/Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce, call 574-267-6311, or visit www.wkchamber.com
