IONIA, Mich. — The Ionia Free Fair is putting their cards on the table this weekend to help preserve a piece of local history. If you want to follow suit, a euchre tournament is giving you a chance to play cards while leaving your mark on the city.
The Floral Building, located on the Ionia Free Fair grounds, was built back in 1929.
"It's been a very well loved and very well used building throughout the years," said Karlee Bailey, a Floral Building Restoration Project chairperson.
Bailey says the building holds a special place in her family's heart.
"I got married here. My sister also got married here, so it's just an important building to us. My grandpa has put a lot of his hard work into this place over the years and just into the grounds in general," Bailey said.
So when the opportunity came up to start up a fundraising committee to restore the building, she took the lead.
"It's a beautiful building, you can't really find any that look like this anymore in the area so preserving history is a big thing for me," Bailey said.
Through grants and fundraising efforts, close to $300,000 worth of restorations have been put into the building so far, and organizers hope to raise $150,000 more.
"This building is very important to a lot of people. A lot of community members have had their own parties here, their own weddings, their own family functions. We've had a lot of very generous donors that are keeping this going. Our list is ever growing," Bailey said.
This weekend's euchre tournament will help keep that momentum going, with all proceeds going directly back into the building.
"Anything that needs to be fixed, we're going to keep going until we have to. So we want to continue to put funds into this. We'd like to replace the windows at some point as well," Bailey said, "we've got a lot of goals, so we'll see what we can do over the next few years."
Euchre night will be at the Steele Street Hall in Ionia at 115 S. Steele Street. Registration and food will begin at 5:30 p.m. The tournament starts at 6 p.m.
It's $15 per person. For more information click here.
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