WaterFire Creator Addresses Shenango Valley Chamber
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- Following one of the first WaterFire Providence events, a construction worker approached artist Barnaby Evans, who created the event, to tell him how much he enjoyed it. He told Evans that he had brought his family, which included his wife, children, mother, mother-in-law and mother-in-law’s sister, and remarked that they didn’t get into a single fight -- a common occurrence, apparently.
“‘This WaterFire thing, it’s almost like it’s art or something,’” the construction worker observed, according to Evans.
“I realized that’s exactly what we were trying to do because people are very often afraid of art,” Evans said. “We managed to take the big, capital, red, scary letter ‘A’ with all sorts of curlicues on it off the word ‘art’ ... something had touched him and he realized that he was part of a larger community and it worked.”
Evans, who conceived WaterFire Providence, collaborated with Shenango Valley activists to stage three WaterFire Sharon events earlier this year. He was the featured speaker Tuesday night at the Shenango Valley Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting at the Avalon Golf & Country Club at Buhl Park.
Like many communities 20 years ago, Providence, R.I. was in “pretty bad shape,” with an empty downtown, a lot of businesses that had left and people despairing about where they lived, Evans recalled.
“I’m a person who always sees the glass as half full, but the glass wasn’t half full. It was only probably a sixth full,” he remarked. “I still was enthusiastic about that but you’ve got to build on that enthusiasm because the first thing you need to do to turn a city around is get people engaged in wanting to make a difference and feeling they can make a difference.” t.
Since its debut in 1994, Providence WaterFire has grown to an event that brings $70 million annually to its community and generates $5 million in new tax revenue, Evans said. The event is ranked by Smarter Travel as the fifth best destination after dark in the entire world; among the “stiff” competition it surpassed was Paris by nightfall, which placed eighth in the rankings.
Gary Meszaros, co-founder of the Quaker Steak and Lube chain, attended a WaterFire Providence event a few years ago and thought something similar would work for Sharon, noted Bob Wilson, Sharon WaterFire chairman. Meszaros gathered a group of “likeminded individuals” to attend the Sept. 11, 2011, Providence WaterFire. “It was truly a moving and transformative experience,” Wilson recalled.
When Wilson contaced Evans, the artist peppered him with questions about the river and surrounding environs. “Part of it was to test us,” he said. “Were we ready for WaterFire? Did we understand what we were getting into? I don’t think we did, but we persevered, we stayed engaged and we began developing a plan, and we were successful.”
Evans said he tried to impress upon the local group that WaterFire is “a very complicated and big project” to undertake.
“When Bob called me, one of the things we were absolutely amazed by was the engagement of the entire community to come [to Providence] on a sort of secret op to look at this crazy thing,” Evans recalled. “We were impressed with the intensity of the community’s engagement to make a difference and that’s exactly what we look at, a group of people who have decided they’re going to set a stake in the ground and make a change in their community. That’s what WaterFire is all about.”
During the annual meeting, the chamber recognized as its person of the year a businessman behind another attraction that brings visitors to the Shenango Valley, George Kraynak, owner of Kraynak Inc. Kraynak’s attracts thousands of visitors to Hermitage for its annual Santa’s Christmasland and Easter Bunny Lane displays.
Kraynak said traffic continues to grow for these events each year, as families who came as children now bring their children. Planning for the Christmas display begins in March, he added. “We always keep in mind that these themes must be enjoyed by all ages.”
Kraynak is “very representative of the business community in the Shenango Valley,” said Robert McCraken, executive director of the Shenango Valley and Lawrence County chambers of commerce. He lauded the businessman as a pioneer and entrepreneur, “to be able to take an idea and give it strength and growth, and create an attraction that continues to bring tens of thousands of people to the valley every week during the holiday season."
McCracken announced during the event that the Shenango and Lawrence chambers are collaborating with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber to stage a Dec. 5 summit at Yankee Lake Ballroom focusing on natural gas as fuel for commercial vehicles. “This is the first time that we have done something as a three-chamber, five county event. So it’s kind of exciting,” he said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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