BUFFALO, Minn. — A frozen lake in the freezing cold is possibly the last place you'd expect to see people flying kites. But in Buffalo Minnesota, community members say it’s exactly what they need right now.
“Just to bring the community together,” chamber president Sue Olmscheid said.
Several months of planning went into this year’s Kites on Ice Event, but after everything that happened in Buffalo this week, Olmscheid said they considered canceling the event.
“We thought that maybe it wouldn’t be right to have something fun, but yet, it also seemed to be like now is the time to bring the community together with something colorful and bright,” Olmscheid said.
So, the event continued on as planned, with a few changes.
“We’ve got donation boxes here in case anyone wants to donate cash to the families. We also have the Buffalo Strong website set up for people and purple ribbons for people to wear to show support,” Olmscheid said.
The chamber of commerce hired more than a dozen professional kite flyers to entertain the crowds.
Mike Stephenson drove 11 hours from southern Illinois so he could show off his colorful kites.
“It’s a little bit of happiness in a gloomy time,” Stephenson said.
He’s been flying kites professionally for more than 13 years and said it was an honor to be in Buffalo to support the community.
“That’s why I’m out here doing this, to give them something to watch, something to look at, something else to think about,” he said.
The kites could be seen for miles.
Buffalo High School junior Madelyn Anderson watched the kites from the local church parking lot where she and her family were busy collecting donations.
“I wanted to show everyone that despite everything, we are still a strong community and that our small-town bonds are really important to us,” Anderson said.
From 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday, Anderson sat in the parking lot and collected donations from her community.
“We just had someone drop off gift cards and also personalized thank you notes,” Anderson says.
She and her mother are planning to drop off the donations at Allina Clinic sometime next week to help the victims and their coworkers through this difficult time.
A group of community members also created a special website that lists all the ways people can donate.