Family fun this weekend!

A bait-and-switch event we can all live with is how City of Sandusky Recreation Program Supervisor Michele Hall describes KidsFest Safety Celebration, the International Museum Day and Sandusky Maritime Museum's May Days taking place this weekend at the Sandusky Bay Pavilion and the Maritime Museum. “This is the third year the City of Sandusky has been involved,” said Hall. “However, it is the fifth year for the Safety Celebration Committee to put on this type of an event. At first we were finding we weren’t getting the people we wanted to get in order to promote this type of awareness. So by adding the KidsFest portion of the safety fair, the kids are coming to have fun but they’re also learning. “The event features over 50 safety agencies within our community to basically distribute information for both youth and adults on anything associated with safety, youth and family involvement. While that’s our main attraction, we do the KidsFest portion to give the youth a day to make memories and experience things they don’t experience every day.” From noon to 5 p.m., May 17, the KidsFest Safety Celebration will feature inflatables, kids games, balloon animal artists, crafts, sand art displays, face painting, clowns, stage performances by various artists, musicians and more. There will even be a free raffle giving away a boy’s and girl’s bike. “The Erie Metroparks will be there doing a nature booth for kids,” Hall said. “The Hitting Streak will be there with their batting cages. We have a stage with different performances.” Also taking place from noon to 4 p.m. on May 17, seven local museums will join together to celebrate International Museum Day in Sandusky and Milan. The list includes The Eleutherous Cooke House & Garden, Follett House Museum, Merry-Go-Round Museum, Ohio Veterans Home Museum, Thomas Edison Birthplace and Milan Historical Society Museum in Milan, along with the Maritime Museum of Sandusky. A complimentary trolley from noon to 4 p.m. will take people between the Maritime Museum of Sandusky and Sandusky Bay Pavilion to the Eleutheros Cooke House & Garden, and Sandusky's Merry-Go-Round Museum. In addition, the Sandusky Exchange Club is once again hosting wagon tours of historic downtown Sandusky with tours that will depart from 605 E. Water St. in front of the Sandusky Bay Pavilion throughout the KidsFest event. The festivities conclude on May 18 with the Maritime Museum of Sandusky’s May Days. “The Maritime Museum of Sandusky is sponsoring a nautical flea market and the museum will also be open with free admission,” Hall said. “They’ll have boat making crafts for kids and giving free boat rides in collaboration with the Good Time I.” Hall said early on the entire event attracted roughly a couple of hundred of people; however, when the KidsFest portion was added audiences increased. In fast, the 2007 event had over 4,400 people with City of Sandusky officials optimistic this year’s KidsFest Safety Celebration, the International Museum Day and Sandusky Maritime Museum's May Days could bring in over 5,000 people to the downtown area. “Not only is it fun for kids, but the admission is only one can of food,” Hall said. “So it’s a great way for them to support our local food bank and to do something as a family.” For more information, call (419) 627-5986. Register file photo/JASON WERLING John Paul Schaffter, 6, slides down "The Obstacle" at the 2007 Wightman-Wieber Kid's Fest. Schaffter's younger brother, Joseph, 5, makes it to the top of the slide with volunteer Brock Clark.