WELLINGTON — For the last 30 years, Boy Scouts Troop 414 out of Wellington has parked cars outside of the county fair’s main gate to help fund summer camps and other activities.

This year, don’t be surprised if their familiar brown uniforms are nowhere to be seen when you pull in.

That’s because the company that owns the parking lot, T.A.P.E. Inc., has handed most of the parking duties for fair week over to its employees.

“This year they’re letting employees park cars because of the economy,” Scout Master Darrell French said. “My understanding is they’re letting them keep the money to supplement their income because of all the cuts they’ve made. The 4-H club the owner’s son belongs to is also parking one day.”

The Boy Scouts will only park cars Friday, Saturday and Sunday of fair week for $3 per vehicle. In years past the group has made between $4,000 and $5,000 from the venture, using the money to send kids to Boy Scout camp, which costs $210 per kid, as well as toward the general operating budget.

“This year it will be substantially less, but we’ll make do,” French said.

The Wellington troop will also be helping Troop 307 out of Lorain pick up garbage around the fair all week. The Lorain scouts are one of a handful of groups the fair board provides with dona-tions in exchange for services during fair week, which board Director Brian Twining said helps everyone.

“We have very special relationships with a lot of these groups so it’s great that we can all help each other out,” he said.
A few weeks ago ,the board was considering cancelling the morning parking services it typically offers in its own parking lots, a service currently performed by people who work for the fair, until the Wellington Cross Country team asked if they could park the cars for a donation.

“We’ll test this out and see how it works,” Twining said. “Instead of hiring individuals in the parking lot maybe we’ll get groups in to do it.”

Other civic groups that receive donations from the fair in exchange for services include the Black River Fullbackers Club, a group out of Sullivan, Ohio, that helps the Black River schools football programs and run the shuttle services at the parking lots; Kiwanis, which takes tickets in the grandstand; the women’s friendship sorority, Beta Sigma Phi, which seats people in the grand-stand; and a woman from Elms Retirement Village, who provides people with wheelchairs as they come into the fair.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7129 or awright@chroniclet.com.