The magic portal opened Friday under the footbridge at Suggett Park in Cortland. Dozens of kids announced they had found the entrance to a new realm and passed through to loot it for the gold.
Three teams of kids, toddlers and preteens queued up to pass the gold – well, stones – in a timed race at the Cortland Police Benevolent Association’s Klondike Hunt, the first contest of the charitable event.
Players answered their peers with “Yeah!” when they asked whether, right there under the bridge, there was a portal. As soon as his team loaded a tote full of stones, volunteer Michael Maniaci quickly rushed the haul past a marker, trying to get the best time.
“I’ve done this before,” Maniaci said. “I love interacting with the kids, playing games.”
Makes it worth the heavy haul of stones, he said.
Parents, city officials like Mayor Scott Steve, on- and off- duty cops watched the kids jostle into rough lines first to pass rocks, then water balloons – cold and slippery, said one player, as was an earthworm that players bent to investigate.
Event organizer Officer Jeff Fitts said the hunt has grown in the past eight years, expanded from a similar event when Fitts himself was young.
“We added different stages,” he said. “Each team has a chance to win each event.”
The Klondike Run serves as a team-building exercise for the young ones, and as a leadership exercise for the volunteer chaperones, Fitts said.
Fitts said the event raised $2,250 for charity, including a $2,000 donation by Suit-Kote Corp.
One beneficiary is Dallas, Texas-based Parker Foundation For Health and Happiness, which raises funds for a camp in Lake Luzerne north of Saratoga Springs for terminally ill children, said founder Matt Parker, who was at the event.
“Our sole purpose is to raise money and donate that to Double HH Ranch,” Parker said.
All that grown-up stuff aside, Cortland 11-year-old Eliana Fitts, Jeff Fitts’ daughter, got to direct her teammates, standing at the very front in the water-balloon game, making sure the team kept pace.
“It felt good,” she said.
