The life of a Wonder Shows midway worker isn’t always an easy one as they travel from town to town all summer long, but Niverville’s fair committee gives them a treat every year in the form of a free hot meal.
Elaine Krahn, a members of the fair committee, explains how the tradition first started. It all began as a Sunday brunch immediately following the end of the fair.
“It started years ago… but we realized, after a time, that Sunday morning brunch was not a good time,” Krahn says. “Because everybody’s exhausted and we kind of had to drag [the employees] there!”
The committee pondered hosting a meal on the Wednesday evening before the fair instead, because the Wonder Shows employees were already in Niverville then but couldn’t yet set up their rides and equipment until the next day when Main Street was blocked off.
The problem with Wednesday evening was that the venue, the Friendship Centre, was already booked for taekwondo lessons.
But last year, the fair committee reached out to Tam’s Taekwondo to see if they could borrow their evening. Master Tam was kind enough to oblige, beginning a new tradition.
Krahn says that last year the Wednesday evening meal was fairly well-attended, but not everyone knew about it. This year, she says, everybody knew. As a result, twice the number of people showed up.
“The idea is that we want to make the midway workers feel welcome and important,” she says. “They have a huge job to do, and we have a huge job to do, and we’re all kind of on the same team. The fair is one entity and Wonder Shows is another, but we complement each other. Together we’re better.”
Several local restaurants graciously stepped up to donate food to this year’s meal. Chicken Chef, Pizza Pizza, Domino’s, and Blatz Bistro all chipped in to supply fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, Caesar salad, garlic breadsticks, and chocolate lava cakes.
The fair committee paid for soft drinks, coffee, and watermelon to round out the meal so that all 70 attendees could leave with full stomachs and happy hearts.
Krahn says that she, Louise Hiebert, and Dana Reuther were in charge of getting this event done and that it went off without a hitch.
“At the end of the fair weekend, you kind of feel like a band of brothers and sisters, because you all know what the other person has put into it,” Krahn says. “And if the Wonder Shows employees go away feeling good about this place, they make us feel good about them, and good about them being here.”
Next June, when Wonder Shows pulls into Niverville again, they’ll know they have a hot meal and friendly faces waiting for them.
