The clock is ticking on the Mountain Foothills Rotary Club’s ice melt barrel.
The annual event lets community members bet on the time a barrel will fall through the ice, signaling the end of another winter and the return of warmer temperatures.
The barrel, which was placed on the lake in January, has taken its annual plunge as early as March 5 and as late as April 17. With this spring’s warmer temperatures, club president-elect Keith Dragon said the 2024 breakthrough could occur soon.
The local club borrowed the idea from the Summit County Rotary Club, which has conducted an ice melt contest since 1986. Mountain Foothills began theirs in 2007.
“It’s one of our two main fundraisers, and something we take pride in as a club,” Dragon said.
A time-recording device is attached to the barrel and activated when the barrel hits the water.
Ticket buyers guess not only the date but the time, down to the second. They’re also asked to guess the high temperature of the date they’ve chosen.
“If two people guess the same time, we use the high temp of the day as tiebreakers, and we have had to use that in the past,” he said. “Typically, it falls in the late morning or early afternoon. But last year was around midnight.”
Evergreen Fire/Rescue retrieves the barrel, a job that also serves as cold water rescue training.
“Over the years, we lost one barrel that I think is at the bottom of the lake,” Dragon said. “We had to do a best guess on that one.”
The contest features four prizes, with the top prize at $1,000, second of $500, third of $250 and fourth of $125.
Tickets are $3, with discounts for buying more than one. Rotary members sell them at various businesses, and several businesses have tickets available to sell. Those locations can be found at evergreenicemelt.com. Tickets may also be purchased online until midnight March 17 — unless the barrel falls in before then.
Proceeds from ticket sales benefit several entities, including the Evergreen Park and Recreation District’s INSPIRE program, Evergreen Christian Outreach, Resilience 1220, Crutches 4 Africa and the Mountain Foothills Rotary Foundation.
The ice melt contest typically raises between $12,000 and $17,000, Dragon said.
The club’s largest fundraiser is July’s Andy Smith golf tournament, which typically raises about $40,000.