T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Nevaeh Belknap plays a carnival game at Flushing’s Heritage Day as Concerned Citizens of Flushing and surrounding areas committee member and builder of the carnival games Vince Carpenter sets runs the game booth.

FLUSHING — The village of Flushing is celebrating America’s 250th anniversary with a boom.

Its annual Heritage Days festival took place Friday evening at Schuler Park.

The festival was organized by a committee known as the Concerned Citizens of Flushing and surrounding areas.

Organizer and committee member Elizabeth Carpenter said six food trucks and 12 area vendors sold products to attendees.

The festival featured live music, carnival games, old-school races, a DJ, fire truck rides, bounce houses and a children’s baking competition. It concluded with a fireworks display.

The fireworks were provided by the Northeast Ohio Pyrotechnics Group.

“We’re just trying to bring the community back together,” Carpenter said. “I’m actually pretty new to the community. I only moved here a couple of years ago, but I kept hearing about all these fireworks that used to happen and all these great days they used to have at the park, and we were trying to bring that back.”

She said the Northeast Ohio Pyrotechnics Group is made up of volunteers who travel to communities to provide fireworks displays while promoting fireworks safety.

“They go around and do that with a lot of different communities,” Carpenter said. “We just give them a budget, they purchase the fireworks and put on the show because it’s what they love to do.”

She added that, in addition to community building, America’s 250th anniversary helped make this year’s event the largest yet.

“This year, with it being America 250, we did a lot of American-themed activities. We have a raffle to win a wreath, and we’ve got a lot of things focused on that,” Carpenter said. “And then we’ve got this huge firework show going off tonight, and we thought we might as well do it up big. So we’ve got kids games for $1. Kids can win some really cool prizes, and we’ve got the bounce houses, we’ve got food, we’ve got vendors, we’ve got a little bit of everything, so we’re trying to get families back out to the park and to participate.”

She said the festival was free to enter, but donations were accepted.

“We want all families to be able to participate, no matter their income situation,” Carpenter said. “We want everybody to be able to come up and be able to do something fun and take home something fun, especially as a kid who may not have as much.”