Rich Roberts, who hosts a bi-annual Chol Hamoed Carnival for thousands of Lakewood children at no cost, says the event was nearly cancelled this year because of the mass growth, but was saved by Chief Lawson and others. “This carnival has been a victim of its own success”, Rich Roberts told TLS. “What started out as a Chol Homoed event in my back yard, attracting about 500 people, has grown to about 13,000 people on Succos. I have contemplated cancelling the carnival due to its growth. I never envisioned this and I was concerned that it has grown beyond the capacity to manage it.”

Roberts says he investigated moving the carnival to Six Flags, or to a closer amusement center, but in both cases “we would not be given an exclusive area so we would not meet the objective of an event that is protected from undesirable behaviors.”

So the Lakewood Police Chief Rob Lawson stepped in to find a solution.

“The carnival has been saved by Police Chief Rob Lawson and Deputy Chief Fred Capper”, Roberts says. “Chief Lawson has hosted multiple meetings, and Deputy Chief Capper has done a lot of work, to improve the control of traffic, parking, safety, and providing the vehicle rides. There have also been significant contributions by Patrol Division Commander Captain Greg Meyer, Traffic and Safety Sergeant Frank Work, the Lakewood Police Tactical Team, and others in the LPD. Also, while we have offered and insisted that we pay for any off-duty police officers who are needed for this event, as well as the vehicles, apparently many officers offered to donate their time to support this free event for the community. This carnival would not have happened without their efforts. Chaverim and LCSW will also be contributing their people to this effort.”

Below is the schedule for this year’s event, submitted to TLS by Rich Roberts:

Overview – The 2012 Pesach Chol Homoed carnival will be for one day only, Monday April 9th from 11:30 AM to 5:30 PM at Pine Park.

Attractions – Two story tellers; cotton candy (15,000 cones, 400 pounds sugar); 7000 pekelach – each with a kaleidoscope, cell phone water game, fruit roll up, bag of chips, and one 8 ounce Golden Fluff water bottle; Pirate Ship; Train; Rock Climbing; Obstacle Course; Moon Bounce; Fun Slide; Petting Zoo; Juggler; Magician or other show; and rides on military/police vehicles with photos.

RAIN DATE – If there is a likelihood of rain on Monday, TLS will notify you of the changes. Do not call the Roberts home.

Sponsor – This is a Traveling Tykes event but it will be paid for by Kollel Ner Avrohom, Inc.

Cost – Everything is free. Nothing will be available to be purchased or paid for.

Objective – To provide a kosher and sweet Chol Homoed event for children while helping to relieve some of the financial burden on frum families.

Updates and changes – everything is subject to change. For weather caused changes to the schedule, please refer to www.kna613.com. Do not call the Roberts home.

Deficiencies from the Succos 2011 carnival and corrective actions that are being implemented:

1. Long lines at pony rides – Cause: time consuming to mount and dismount child from pony; ponies backing up waiting for child exchange; 9 ponies needed for 6 to always be walking with a capacity of approximately 120 children per hour. Corrective Action: we are replacing the pony rides with military style police vehicle rides. This will enable whole families to ride together and it should boost our capacity to 275 people per hour. SimchaVision will be taking photos as people enter the vehicles and should have the photos printed for distribution at the conclusion of each ride.

2. Not enough pekelach – for Succos 2011, we substantially improved the pace of dispensing pekelach. The result was over 8000 children receiving pekelach (one per child). It is difficult to estimate how many pekelach are needed for this Pesach. Typically Pesach draws about 2/3 of the attendance compared to Succos. But there has been about a 10% to 20% sequential annual growth in attendance and the Lakewood Police Department’s involvement, starting with this carnival, should make traffic and parking much more efficient which might facilitate higher attendance. Therefore, we have 7000 pekelach for this carnival which will be allocated as approximately 1200 per hour with 1000 for the final hour.

 Note for other days – Traveling Tykes will have its own carnival on other Chol Homoed days, besides our carnival at Pine Park, but some of the attractions will be different and there will be a monetary charge for attendees.

Best regards,

Kasriel (Rich) Roberts