T-L Photos/GAGE VOTA Belmont County residents flock to the 16th annual Loop Festival despite the inclement weather Friday.

SHADYSIDE — Rain, rain go away — the 16th annual Loop Festival is here to stay.

As a hot, sunny Friday turned into a rainy evening, hundreds of Belmont County residents still flocked to the Loop Festival on the village of Shadyside’s historic Central Avenue loop.

Loop Festival Chairman Joel Traylor said that this year’s festival is the biggest one yet.

“We just keep on growing. This year will be our biggest as far as vendors go, and we have sponsors who help us, and we also get a grant from Belmont County Tourism,” Traylor said. “Part of the idea is to offer an opportunity for families to come out and gather and have fun. For those who graduated Shadyside High School can come to the different places like Central Grill, the Tiger Pub, and the American Legion, who all host the class reunions. We’ve got classes from 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 this year.”

Traylor is also a pastor at New Life Fellowship Church and said that the event originally started as a block party hosted by the church to engage with the community.

“We went from a little block party concept to outgrowing that with having many vendors and also having something that’s a part of the alumni weekend. The alumni come in from various places, and we’ve found Father’s Day weekend was the best because that brings people in naturally. And so that’s what we do, and we just give something for families to do. Shadyside used to have a lot of festivals, but now this is really the only game in town,” he said. “We find that people are coming in from out of town, because there’s not much to do in the communities around us and they want to get out in the community. The only year we didn’t have it was the COVID year.”

Traylor added that area bands were booked to perform at the festival but opted out due to the weather not cooperating.

He said that although the event is family friendly, the American Legion has a beer garden for attendees of legal drinking age.

“We have a lot of the community organizations here. We have the Shadyside High School cheerleaders, the Boy Scouts and a bunch of different ones who participate, so it tends to be a great opportunity for them to raise a little money as well. We’ve been growing every year. The loop originally where cars would cruise the loop all the way down to the library, but this was a famous landmark for Shadyside,” he said.

He added that all of the money generated from the festival is used to make improvements on the loop as well as bettering the community.

“We use the proceeds, really, to put right back into the community. So we think it’s a great investment in ourselves,” Traylor said.

For the second year in a row, the Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club hosted a bike show Friday to raise money for the Lincoln Avenue United Methodist Church, which provides meals for students throughout the school year. Contestants paid a $10 entry fee and the first-, second- and third-place winners receive a trophy.

“We are donating to the charity of the Lincoln Avenue United Methodist Church meals for students, which make free meals for students, staff, and anybody looking that may need a helping hand. We got into this last year, and we just wanted to continue to be a part of it again. It seems like a worthy cause, and I got Aaron’s Sales and Lease involved in it also to help with some of the cost of putting it on. It is a 100% donation. We do not take any money from this at all. Last year, we were able to raise $500 with some really poor weather, and this year we’re hoping to have a much better turnout, and we’re just happy to be a part of the community that we actually ride in and work in. Our kids go to school here. We’re just the same as anybody else. We just so happen to be bikers,” Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club communications officer Erik “Hammer” Botizan said of the reason why the motorcycle club is passionate about playing a positive role in the community.

“In the present state of the world, unfortunately, motorcycle clubs and bikers in general kind of have a poor shade thrown on them, and we’re just out here getting involved and showing everybody in the community that it isn’t really all about that.There are groups that are out trying to make a difference and be better than some others,” he added. “And really, in honesty, if you protect the community that you’re involved in, I mean, there’s no reason to make it worse, you’d want to make it better.”

The Loop Festival will also take place Saturday night with a car show starting at 6 p.m.

It will kick off day two by marking the 35th anniversary of the Flood of Tears — flash flooding that claimed 26 lives on June 14, 1990.

“We celebrate that in front of the American Legion, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The fire department will be reading the names of those who lost their lives in that flood. And so it’ll be a good time to honor and remember. We say we’ll never forget, and here we are 35 years later and we still remember, and it still causes pain in some people’s hearts,” Traylor said.