Community is welcome to attend re-enactment and pioneer party at Maytag Park

Newton community members are invited to join a Pioneer Party with food, pioneer games and pioneer handcarts from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Maytag Park, near the Maytag Bowl.

More than 125 youth and adult leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called Mormons) from Newton and surrounding areas will walk into the park at the end of a two-day re-enactment of the Mormon pioneer trek of 1847. The group will be greeted by members of the community and their church community as they finish the two-day trek.

The participants in the trek re-enactment will pull handcarts carrying all of their clothing and gear June 23-24 and will travel some of the same trails their predecessors walked 176 years ago. For the re-enactment, they will wear pioneer clothing, eat pioneer food and learn more about the sacrifices of the pioneers in the 1800s.

The Pioneer Party will recreate the welcome parties that greeted pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ as they entered the Salt Lake Valley in Utah at the end of their trek in the 1800s.

The party will include a dessert contest, handcart pulls and a variety of pioneer games.

“This event helps our youth honor their heritage and learn lessons of faith, unity and determination through their experiences,” president Jay Campbell Helton, first counselor in the Stake Presidency of the Des Moines Iowa Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said.

Members of the Newton community are welcome at the party. They can bring a dish for the potluck lunch if they wish, but do not need to do so. Hotdogs and hamburgers will also be provided.