ROCHELLE – Rochelle’s first downtown block party took place on Saturday and from all accounts seems like it was a hit with the community.
The block party featured many different activities for the whole family including a dunk tank, a pie in the face booth, police K-9 demonstration, a live band, a 50/50 raffle and popular food vendors.
“All of our food venders were extremely happy as they sold out, everyone seemed to do really well, we had a good response with our dunk tank and our pie in the face featuring community celebrities” said Ryan Greifenkamp, co-creator of We Care Rochelle.

The event had a very good turnout, coming close to reaching the goal of 1,000 attendees. After seeing such a good response to the first block party, We Care Rochelle organizers already have plans to see it grow in the future.
“For a first-year event, it was successful and shows the strength and potential to grow and hopefully become one of the biggest events in town,” added Greifenkamp.

While the event was put on by We Care Rochelle, the group received support from the City of Rochelle, Rochelle Municipal Utilities and the many organizations and businesses that sponsored the event.
While the block party was aimed at providing a fun evening for families, it was also put together to help give back to the community. Money is still being counted before final numbers are released, but preliminary numbers are eclipsing the $1,000 mark that will be used for various community causes.
“We want to give a big thank you to all of our sponsors, we look forward to continuing to grow those relationships and we thank the community for coming out and supporting a good cause,” said Greifenkamp. “We are excited for things to come, it is going to be bigger and better next year and every year.”