Annual Redneck Shindig sounds off Saturday at the fairgrounds

The fourth annual Redneck Shindig hosted by Cancer Warriors for Central Nevada is Saturday and hopes to help raise more than $5,000 for Dean Brownell and Haylie Chmela to assist them in their fight against cancer.

Cancer Warriors for Central Nevada was created by Laurel Topken when cancer struck close to home a few years ago. Her stepdaughter was diagnosed with breast cancer and was in the process of going through treatment when Topken thought of the idea to start a fundraiser to help her. Once they completed the fundraisers for her stepdaughter, Topken said she felt the need to continue with fundraisers to give back to the community.

All of the committee members of Cancer Warriors for Central Nevada were on board for the idea of helping the fight against cancer since they to have been touched by the effects of cancer in some way.

In order to get considered by the foundation, recipients first had to be nominated by family members, friends or both. Once nominated, the names of several possible candidates were put into a bowl, and two were drawn out to decide which candidates were going to be the recipients. Brownell and Chmela are this year’s recipients.

Brownell, a musician, is fighting stage 4 tongue cancer along with several other serious health issues that have been aggravated from his cancer treatment. Chmela, 8, was diagnosed last year with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, which is a rare cancer that affects about 300 children a year in the U.S.

The theme of the fundraiser is Redneck Shindig. Topken thought of the idea because of her involvement with cars growing up.

“I’ve always been into automobiles because my parents were in automobile clubs ... my whole family has been involved in that kind of thing.” Topken said. “So I wanted to do something different, and I figured with the Redneck one, no one has to have a fancy vehicle to have a redneck vehicle. I thought that would appeal to a lot of locals around here.

“We started out by just wanting to do a car show but we wanted to keep people around all day so then we started adding in all these other activities and it just sort of bloomed from there.”

The foundation is putting on many events to keep everyone of all ages entertained all day. Those events include the following:

The redneck car show, human foosball, flea market, spin games and water balloon toss will be taking place throughout the day.

The open mic and open jam with sound provided by Dean Brownell will take place from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and some instruments will be provided.

The 5K run will start registration at 6:30 a.m.; 7 a.m. the 5k race will start. The watermelon eating contests will take place at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m.

Topken said the organization is working on getting a dunk tank.

The Redneck Car Contest has a fee, $20 per car and $10 per bike, the 5K run/walk has a $25 fee.

Several vendors will be at the event.

After the bills are paid, Topken said the organization gives 90 percent of the remaining funds to the recipients. The other 10 percent goes into savings for the next event.

Topken said Brownell and Chmela are able to use the donations however they see fit, whether it’s for treatment, travel expenses, food, etc.