Wifflefest, the annual athletic competition at Southview Grace Brethren Church, Ashland, Ohio (Mark Abel, pastor), is featured in a story on WMFD-TV, Mansfield, Ohio. A portion of the story appears below. Click here for the complete article, along with the video story.
Wifflefest 18 Swings Away In Ashland
It’s been an annual tradition in Ashland since 2000, it’s Wifflefest time again on the grounds of Southview Grace Brethren Church in Ashland as Wifflefest 18 starts up Friday running through July 4th. The tournament created by Pastor Mark Able has been pulling in over 100 teams for well over a decade.
“Our high water mark was several years ago at 138 teams which we felt like that year the goal just got to be how many teams which is not the goal of Wifflefest. So, we reevaluated things, adjusted our tournament schedule to where we feel we can offer a tournament that is special to the community and is done with excellence so were gonna run probably in the 115-125 range would be my guess.”
Able says the goal of Wifflefest is to show the church’s strong Christian beliefs in Jesus Christ and to show they are involved in the community of Ashland. “For us as a church, we say to the community we’re here, we’re here for you, we care about the community. That’s why we go through all this trouble to put on a tournament to provide a good clean family fun activity for Ashland.”
As with years past, Able says the fields the tournament will be played on are named after major league ballparks past and present. “We have Fenway, we have Jacob’s Field because that’s what it was originally called. We have Yankee, Dodger, Camden Yards and then the other three we rotate we built some different ones to keep things fresh and new.”
Click here for the complete article, along with the video story.