St. Ann Catholic Church’s Fall Festival was another great success this year. The festival, an annual celebration for the parish, was a two-day event featuring a golf tournament on Saturday, September 7, and a meal with raffles, silent auctions, and bingo for both kids and adults the following Sunday.
The annual golf tournament, which began at 4 p.m, was at Prairie Ridge Golf Course. This year, Adam Roesler, Jim Schultz, Tim Burke, and Aidan Demarais organized the tournament. Out of 18 teams initially expected, 16 showed up. Roesler shared that Fr. Brian Mulligan, formerly of St. Ann and now at the MSU Mankato Newman Center, brought two teams of college students with him to the tournament. Everyone enjoyed seeing Mulligan again.
As the golf tournament concluded, the kids were allowed to run around the putting green. At the same time, Generation Gap gave some musical entertainment to the tournament participants and parishioners who were spectators of the golfers. A food truck was also onsite.
Sunday, Sept. 8, featured the bulk of the activities at the St. Ann Parish Center. This part of the festival differed from past years because this year’s usual 8:30 a.m. mass time wasn’t changed to 10 a.m. to accommodate the special occasion of the festival.
When St. Ann held mass at 10 a.m. in previous years, it served as a perfect segue from mass to lunch, followed by all the festival’s other activities. But last year, the parish clusters changed; St. Ann joined Immaculate Conception of St. Clair and All Saints of Madison Lake, and Fr. Robert Schneider took over the parish.
While St. Ann still switched its mass time to later on the Sunday of last year’s festival, it was reported that Fr. Schneider wanted to keep the typical mass times between Immaculate Conception and St. Ann this year.
This caused initial concern as there weren’t the usual crowds from previous years that showed up at the start of the lunch at 11 a.m. However, these worries were quelled as a full house appeared for the bingo.
The basket raffle began at about 9:30 a.m. A cash raffle was also held, as well as a silent auction. Items up for auction and the basket raffle included Christmas decorations, a Unicorn-themed package with stuffed animals and a Unicorn-flavored Rice Krispies treat from Casey’s, and a basket that had a jar of Mary Jo Pohlen’s Belgian waffle cookies.
This year’s meal featured options of pulled pork, a brat, or a Polish sausage dinner. The meal was $10 for adults and $5 for children under ten. Several parish members either cooked or helped serve the meal.
Throughout the day, there were plenty of activities for the younger church members, from bounce houses to face painting. At 1 p.m. was bingo. The adults played 20 games in the parish center while the kids’ bingo took place outside. Demarais and Roesler were the announcers for the adult bingo, while the older youth members ran the kids’ bingo and offered refreshments. Portions of the Sunday activities also served as a National Honor Society service project for Katie Olson, a youth member of St. Ann and a junior at Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton.
It was a beautiful day for kids to enjoy the outdoor activities and a fantastic day for the church.
