Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

An event with a familiar name struggles to get volunteers after years of successful operation. Or, organizers decide they want to focus on other things and make the decision to cut their losses. In either case, the community that didn’t hear the pleas for volunteers before the announcement ends up swooping in at the last minute to save the event.

It’s becoming an all too familiar tale in Chautauqua County. The Downtown Jamestown Cruise-In, Mayville’s Winterfest, Jamestown’s holiday parade, the turning of the Chadakoin River Green. All have nearly come to an end in recent years. All were saved – in some cases multiple times – after organizers either announced the event wouldn’t take place. Add the Celoron Ribfest to that list.

The event will take a hiatus in 2026 after a combination of factors made holding the annual summer event in Celoron Park impossible this summer. The event has had a run of unfortunate weather and smoke from Canadian wildfires over the past few years, but the lack of volunteer help has been a problem over the past few Ribfests. It should come as no surprise Celoron officials decided it was time to regroup.

There are many who look forward to the Ribfest each year. And, for this year, they do have an option to satisfy their craving for ribs by driving to Warren, which is holding a rib festival this year for the first time in more than a decade from June 25-27 in downtown Warren. That’s a great one-year fix, but we’d love nothing more than for Ribfest to return to Celoron. The shores of Chautauqua Lake are a wonderful place to eat some delicious ribs and listen to music on a warm summer night.

Saving the event is up to us. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again now. Community events take a lot of time and manpower to pull off each year, and all too often these days the community wants to attend the event but not help behind the scenes to provide the labor needed. We get it. People are busy. Many people are working more than one job to help support their families as economic times get tougher. People have activities for their children that take up a lot of time and often require volunteer time as well. And some people simply don’t want to be bothered. Life is a lot different in 2026 than it was in 1986.

But if we aren’t careful, one way life is going to be different is the loss of community events that some have grown to love – and others just assume will always take place because someone else takes care of the details. We’re losing a generation of someones who have long taken care of events like the Cruise-In, turning the Chadakoin River green on St. Patrick’s Day or building an ice castle in Mayville in the winter. Unless the community at large steps up, the events we grew up with won’t be here for our children or grandchildren.