The following is written by Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow:

I must confess that I was taken by surprise last year when hundreds of you took the survey to help us plan the future of Sumner and overwhelmingly told us that events are one of the key services you value.  Of course, everyone loves a good party, but I didn’t realize how key they are to making Sumner the special place it is.

This realization further hit home as we planned Open in Sumner this weekend. We really envisioned this as a way to entice people in Tacoma, Seattle maybe even southwest Washington to visit Sumner and discover this charming town so that they’ll come back again and again to shop in our stores and eat in our restaurants.

Yet, as this event continued to develop, I started seeing the other benefits. To make this happen, our staff have been working for months with partners like Pierce County, The Old Cannery, Sunset Chevrolet, Amazon’s Distribution Center here in Sumner, Keurig Green Mountain, First Tee of South Puget Sound, the Sumner Family Center, Sumner Rotary, the Masons, Visit Rainer, the new YMCA…the list is really long.  The point is that this one event gives us the chance to build strong partnerships with neighboring jurisdictions, with businesses of all sizes here in town, with non-profit organizations, and most of all, with all of you.  The forecast is looking beautiful, and I don’t think there’s anywhere else where you can dance to The Shy Boys, enjoy The Greatest Game Ever Played outdoors, enjoy a nine-hole putt-putt designed just for this event, try playing Hole-in-One on Main Street, visit the Washington State Fair Traveling Farm and, of course, enjoy a parade down Main Street.

Please come on in and get in on the fun.  All events are free with no advance registration.  If that sounds too good to be true, please stop by and give a donation to the Friends of American Lake Veterans Golf Course, the recipients of all the proceeds.  After all, it’s events like this that really make Sumner the special town it is, as you all noted in your surveys last year!