The non-profit organization, Inspire Good WNY, based in Mayville and newly formed by community members Ariel Cartwright and Sorena Gilkinson in April 2024, took over the event following the cancellation announcement. Gilkinson, who is also the president of the non-profit, said the decision to take the event on came following much community collaboration.

“We were approached by many locals and business owners, including the Village of Mayville, to see if our organization would be willing to pick up the event and help collaborate to carry it on,” Gilkinson said. “We had a board meeting and had full approval to pick it up as everyone wanted to see it continue.”

The organization has chosen to make the most of the time they were given to plan the event and is working with their insurance company to offer a variety of things that will appeal to the family-style event this was designed to be. People can expect to see the main attraction of the ice castle, the fireworks, a local band onsite Saturday night, sledding hills, a Kids Zone, carriage rides, food vendors, and many collaborative community events and activities. They have also chosen to utilize the village green, or the park at the traffic light, for their wooden ice castle, ice ball bowling and more. Both the lake area and the uptown area will be connected by a shuttle running on Saturday.

“Timing to plan was short, so planning for the event and adding in many new things was not an option,” Gilkinson said. “We do have a shuttle running on Saturday that was something the chamber was working on for this year and they made it easy to transfer to us. We also were able to secure a sponsor for that to happen.”

Pictured is the progress of the ice castle.

Gilkinson noted all of the sponsors for the festival are listed on the Facebook page, along with community events happening around the village and the specific locations, times, and dates of those as the festival will run from Friday at 5 p.m. to Sunday at 4 p.m. with a program for the festival with everything listed still being created. The Facebook page can be found under “The Mayville Winter Festival – President’s Day Weekend – Mayville New York”.

The mission of Inspire Good WNY is in a nutshell to inspire good and give back through a grass-roots mission, and that is something people can expect to see at the festival.

“We are collaborating with our local businesses and they are hosting special things — this is an important aspect for our community as well as this event — bringing everyone together,” Gilkinson said. “The connection is getting people out and about to warm up and to explore our area.”

Other specific activities include; the assembling of the wooden castle in the Village green, or the park uptown, with opportunities for photo ops, ice ball bowling, and a snow sculpture contest happening around town for residents and businesses to register for cash prizes. The addition of the shuttle allowed for the entire Mayville community to be connected for this event, Gilkinson said.

While the weather is always unpredictable, so far for this year Gilkinson said it has been perfect set-up weather for the festival with the ice, mostly-regular cold temperatures and the right temperatures set for the festival weekend.

Gilkinson credited much of the work being done to be able to still bring the Mayville Winter Festival to the community this year to the community support that has been behind them since they took over last month.

“It is huge and it has been amazing,” Gilkinson said. “We have experienced community support in all facets, from running signs, to delivering baked goods and hot drinks, offering lunches, being a lunch runner to pick up and deliver, sponsoring the event, offering kinds words and showing excitement, seeing the dedication and excitement of the castle builders, to the new faces, new ideas, collaboration, good leadership, and so much more. Having the community space to have meetings, for the castle workers to enjoy a warm meal and warm up, the gratitude and blessings from our community are so wonderful.”

The Mayville Winter Festival this year is a community event done by the community and for the community, and it is for that reason that Gilkinson said everyone should be interested in coming out. She said it has been a community effort all around, including in support, dedication, long days in the cold, and togetherness.

“That shows how important working together is,” Gilkinson said. “Our sports teams benefit from the parking proceeds which keeps local kids active in school. To experience an event of this magnitude locally where the weather has cooperated and the volunteers have built a stunning masterpiece is just a draw in itself. We leaned back into the grassroots and offered what we could handle in a four week turn-around and if anyone says that it can’t be done — our community has proven otherwise.”

This year’s castle lighting will include a dedication ceremony first, dedicating this event to the community, the volunteers, the castle builders, the sponsors and everyone who made a positive impact and helped to bring this to fruition — starting with the Village of Mayville and Chris Keefe, who helped oversee construction of the ice castle. The invitation is open to everyone and the official lighting will happen after.

Gilkinson said community involvement is important, and without community involvement things like saving the Mayville Winter Festival do not happen, urging everyone to get involved in their community if they have the opportunity.

“There are so many cool things happening everywhere because of people who have had ideas in the past and have not been afraid to start them,” Gilkinson said. “No involvement means that the chances of losing something amazing is high, and the Mayville Winter Festival could have been that. It could have been a part of history instead of us making history.”