After a scorching hot July, Greene County is ready for some RAIN (DAY)! The 2020 Rain Day celebration may not be the traditional event that everyone is used to having, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a fun time – and you don’t even have to leave home to enjoy it this year. The Special Events Committee has been diligently planning to provide the very first virtual Rain Day Festival, overflowing with local entertainment, historical videos, and contests.
The virtual festival will be an all-day event on the Rain Day Facebook page, with something scheduled every hour, starting at 9am and lasting until fireworks bring the evening to an end at 9pm. This year’s Rain Day celebrates 147 years of recording rainfall in Waynesburg on July 29 – with 115 of those years having rain. Waynesburg Troop Greene 1280 will continue their tradition as official Rain Watchers and camp out on the courthouse lawn at midnight.
This year’s hat bet is with Stephen Cropper, chief meteorologist of WPXI. Stephen has been delivering local forecasts to the Pittsburgh area for nearly two decades. He has been awarded the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Television Weathercasting. Stephen is a graduate of the Duquesne University School of Law and has been licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania as well as The United States District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania. He, serves on the Advisory Board of The Salvation Army and works with other regional charitable organizations.
The entertainment this year is jam-packed with performances from fantastic, local talent. The performers have been working closely with Ben McMillen to create pre-recorded videos that will play throughout the day on Facebook. These amazing entertainers include Jessica Torres, Drew Johnson, Trenton Antil & Jolene Hillier, Cassidy Paige, Lucien Schroyer, & Graham Sterling, Jeff Grable, Lexie VanDyne, Tyler Jeffries, and the Shadow Cats.
This year’s contests consist of the annual Baby Rain Day, Downtown Business Window Decorating, and Umbrella Decorating contests, but there are a few new contests to enjoy, also. The new-this-year county-wide decorating contest lets contestant from all around Greene County decorate their yard, house windows, driveway, sidewalk or porch in a Rain Day theme. And the new coloring contest for ages 5 – 8 and the poster contest for ages 9 – 12 challenges kids to dive into their inner artist. Both the coloring and the poster contest winners will receive a goody basket of Rain Day items. All contests this year require pre-registration and the deadline for the contests (excluding Baby Rain Day, which has already passed) is Monday, July 27th. Visit the Rain Day Facebook page for more information!
Special Events will have a booth set up in front of the Courthouse from 9am to 5pm. They will be handing out programs and selling t-shirts and promotional items. This year, in addition to the standard Rain Day shirt, they will have a special edition shirt. There will also be a punch board with chances to win local business gift certificates and rain Day items. At 5:30 there will be an award presentation followed by a vehicle parade through some streets of the borough; the parade will include all the contest winners, Wayne Drop, the 2020 Miss Rain Day and her court, Rain Watchers, and more, escorted by the Waynesburg Borough Police Department and the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.
The Special Events Committee would like to extend their very grateful thanks to this year’s sponsors and their support. Without dedicated sponsors, community events like this would not be able to continue.
