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Oktoberfest Youngstown supports autism community

The Autism Society of the Mahoning Valley and Penguin City Brewing will partner for Oktoberfest Youngstown on Saturday.

The autism society staged Oktoberfest events in the mid 2010s for a few years as a fundraiser when Aundrea Cika Heschmeyer was its director. She had experience with staging ethnic festivals from her involvement with Polish Youngstown and Simply Slavic.

"When I stopped being full-time executive director of the Autism Society, that changed our ability to focus full time on this," Heschmeyer said.

Aspasia Lyras, co-owner of Penguin City, reached out to her about doing an Oktoberfest at the brewery, and Heschmeyer reached out to the autism group, where she is board chair, about making the event a fundraiser for the organization again.

The goal is to create an event that honors those ethnic traditions but appeals to a broad audience in the same way that St. Patrick's Day festivals draw many "Honorary Irish."

"We are all about authentic," Heschmeyer said. "With my background with Polish Day and Simply Slavic, we're doing the same for the Germans that we've done for the Slavs. We've got the Saxon Band. We've got the German folk dancers, and we've got a polka band."

Closing out the festival will be Youngstown's HouseBand. In recent years, Simply Slavic has featured popular local rock acts as its evening headliner, and Christian Rhinehart did the same when he hosted Oktoberfests at his restaurant Rhine Haus in downtown Youngstown in 2018 and '19.

"That's the model that they follow at Oktoberfest Cleveland, one of the biggest in the nation," Heschmeyer said.

The event also is catering to the Mahoning Valley's love of sports with a series of competitions throughout the day, including pretzel and bratwurst tosses, a bratwurst eating contest and beer stein races.

The final event is a Masskrugstemmen competition, where participants see who can hold a full stein of beer in their outstretched arm, parallel to the ground the longest.

"What we did is cherry pick all the best Oktoberfests in the nation and bring all of these games to our one-day event," Heschmeyer said. "If you're looking at Oktoberfest Cincinnati or Oktoberfest Cleveland, you'll see a little of this, but we are jam packing the event full of contests and all the fun stuff. "It's not just having a bratwurst and a beer."

It's also about supporting a cause. Jodi Glass, executive director of the Autism Society of the Mahoning Valley referred to the German tradition of Gemütlichkeit, which is a spirit of warmth, friendship, togetherness, and joyful fellowship.

"What the autism society wants for our autism community is togetherness, support," Glass said. "People coming through those doors, paying the $20 for the admission, that is showing support, showing that good faith, that goodwill towards the autism community, because we can't do what we do for free. We need that money to operate and to offer those programs and services to almost 10,000 autistic individuals in the Valley and their support network."

If you go …

WHAT: Oktoberfest Youngstown

WHEN: Noon to 11 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Penguin City Brewing, 460 E. Federal St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Admission is $20 with children ages 12 and younger admitted free. For advance tickets or more information, go to oktoberfestyoungstown.org.

SCHEDULE

12:15 p.m. -- Oktober Festbier tapping

12:30 p.m. -- Pretzel Toss

1, 3:45 and 7:15 p.m. -- Ohio Valley Folk Society Dancers

1:30 p.m. -- Bratwurst Eating Contest

2 and 3 p.m. -- Saxon Club Band

2:45 p.m. -- Bratwurst Toss

4:15, 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. -- Fred Ziwich Polka Band

5 p.m. -- Community Chicken Dance Yodel-Ay-Woo-Hoo

6 p.m. -- Beer Stein Races

7:45, 8:45 and 9:45 p.m. -- Youngstown's HouseBand

8:30 p.m. -- Masskrugstemmen Competition

9:30 p.m. -- Best Beer Belly Contest and raffle drawings