How Springville Kiwanis scones became an Art City Days staple
Members of the Springville Kiwanis Club serve scones at Art City Days in Springville on June 5, 2013. The booth funds the club's charitable work.
Tess Fisher, left, and Rebecca Hammond help prepare scones for the Springville Kiwanis Club's booth at Art City Days in Springville on June 5, 2013. The booth funds the club's charitable work.
From left: Kayla Pexton, Halle Acor and Aaron Stoddard help prepare scones for the Springville Kiwanis Club's booth at Art City Days in Springville on June 5, 2013. The booth funds the club's charitable work.
Tess Fisher weighs dough at the Springville Kiwanis Club's booth at Art City Days in Springville on June 5, 2013. The booth funds the club's charitable work.
Customers wait in line for scones at the Springville Kiwanis Club's booth at Art City Days in Springville on June 5, 2013. The booth funds the club's charitable work.
Visitors to Springville’s Art City Days know the local Kiwanis Club’s signature scones are a highlight of the annual summer celebration.
But what scone booth regulars might not realize is before the scones were raising money for the Springville Kiwanis Club, they served for several years to build funds for another local organization: a ward in the Kolob Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When the Springville ward received instruction from the LDS Church that they should no longer hold fundraising projects, Kiwanis Club members in the ward took over the effort, and the Art City Days scone booth as is known today was born, according to former Springville Kiwanis Club president, Brent Haymond.
“The scone booth has become really the hallmark of our fundraising and also one of the major events at the Art City Days,” Haymond said.
Now, about 20 years later, the volume of the club’s scone booth effort has increased to the point that it can easily sell more than 5,000 scones in its four days of operation each summer. Haymond said the booth attracts visitors from as far north as Salt Lake City for a taste of its $4 sweet, fried dough slathered in honey butter.
“We have a lot of people that come over and over again because of our quality of our scones,” Haymond said.
Running the scone booth is a team project, requiring the efforts of more than 200 volunteers over 14 shifts of at least three hours each.
“We’re a club of just under 20, so there’s a lot of people in the community that step up and help,” Haymond said. “We have families bringing their children to serve in the booth as a fundraiser.”
The secret dough recipe is mixed and prepared by Reams grocery store and then transported in 5-gallon cans to be cooked at the booth in Springville’s Civic Center Park, Haymond said.
“We have an electric roller, and then we have a lot of youth who are rolling it out into the final scone, and then we have two cookers going full time cooking scones, and of course we have people putting honey butter on the scones and those taking funds,” Haymond said.
In recent years, the booth has also added to its menu homemade root beer, made on-site, for $1 a glass.
“It’s actually become very successful in the last two years,” Haymond said. “People have really come out with more and more of a desire to have homemade root beer.”
The Springville Kiwanis Club uses the funds earned from its Art City Days scone booth to serve the community’s youth in several ways. One of its major efforts is its Sub for Santa program and corresponding food drive and 5K race.
“We, last year, gave out 930 gift cards to needy children that have been identified by the churches and also by the Nebo School District, and each of those gift cards were $25, so that they could have some form of Christmas,” Haymond said. “We handed out last year 385 boxes of food to 230 families along with the 930 gift cards.”
Other Springville Kiwanis Club community efforts have included sponsoring the Art City Days Children’s Art Festival, a nondenominational Boy Scouts troop and Springville High School’s Key Club, which is the largest in the state, according to Haymond.
“The Key Club has grown from zero to 135 members at the high school in the last four years,” Haymond said. “The Key Club takes projects for their community or for the school. They just finished a major repainting of the indoor track at Springville High School and putting up faith-promoting thoughts on the wall.”
Haymond said the club also gives out four high school scholarships for service each year.
“We just feel it’s a great honor to serve the community, and we’ve seen a lot of success with people that we’ve given scholarships,” Haymond said.
The Kiwanis scone booth’s location, near the Springville Civic Center’s front entrance, makes it a “marquee event” at the annual summer celebration, according to Haymond.
“I think that we have really become kind of a gathering place for the Art City Days. We’ve been here the longest, and we have a lot of people who look forward to it. In the park, we’ve got an area where people can sit down underneath the trees behind our booths and just really enjoy a comfortable time,” Haymond said. “We want everybody to come and enjoy a scone.”
Where: Civic Center Park, 110 S. Main St., Springville
Hours: Wednesday 6-10 p.m., Thursday-Friday Noon-10 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Price: Scones $4, root beer $1
Info: springville.org
Dining
