Creston RAGBRAI finishes with surplus

RAGBRAI has come and gone, but Creston is still feeling its effects.

After the Creston RAGBRAI committee’s late-August wrap-up meeting with RAGBRAI corporate, it was announced the Creston RAGBRAI committee finished with a $9,000 surplus.

Creston RAGBRAI Treasurer Steve Crittenden said the Creston RAGBRAI committee was able to finish in the green despite income falling short in several areas.

“The big takeaway was it was a long, hilly ride and it really took its toll on the riders. Therefore, a lot of our activities were not attended as well as we had planned,” Crittenden said. “Our income was down on bus shuttles, down on beverage garden area.”

But, thanks to RAGBRAI’s $8,500 sponsorship and approximately $20,000 in sponsorships from local businesses, Creston RAGBRAI finished with a surplus.

The executive committee and advisory committee took a vote and settled on splitting that $9,000 surplus between the three campgrounds for the event: McKinley Park, Southwestern Community College and Creston Community School District.

“Once all our bills have been in and we know everything is settled, we should give each of the campgrounds $3,000 apiece,” Crittenden said. “Without the support of those organizations, there’s no way we could have housed that many riders. We felt it was important to put it back to those areas.”

Volunteer Committee Co-chairperson Gary Bucklin said a bulk of the work the day of RAGBRAI was done at the three campgrounds.

“Everybody deserved a little bit of payback for that sort of thing,” Bucklin said. “It was just a little bit of gratitude we could show those people for opening up their facilities for the people.”

In addition, Crittenden said Creston RAGBRAI was able to refund the $350 vendor fee to all the local nonprofits that paid vendor fees.

One of the big positives from the event was the volunteer turnout in Creston.

“We had tremendous volunteers,” Crittenden said. “We had volunteers signed up for one shift and ended up working two or three shifts. The community did a tremendous job of showcasing Creston.”

Bucklin said following July 4, more volunteers started signing up.

“It was a great turnout by volunteers,” he said. “We would have liked to have a lot more, but we got the job done. I thought the turnout by the community and helping out was really good. We learned a lot.”

Crittenden and Bucklin agreed the teamwork shown by different committees could prove beneficial for Creston down the road.

“The other big positive in my mind was the networking all the volunteers were able to do amongst all the committees in Creston,” Crittenden said. “I think our community will be stronger for it because of the networking we went through during this process.”