Kiwanis Coweta County Fair: Special Needs Day Statement

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following statement is from Newnan Kiwanis Coweta County Fair Chairman Scott C. Cortner.

Scott C. Cortner

For more than 20 years, the Newnan Kiwanis Club has offered a special needs day at the Coweta County Fair for youth in the Coweta County School System along with our Aktion Club through the Rutledge Center in Newnan. The Aktion Club is a Kiwanis-supported program and is the only service club for adults with disabilities, with more than 10,000 members worldwide including the Rutledge Center.

In fact, homeschool special needs youth have also attended this event throughout the years. We rely on volunteers to provide this experience and in 2022, opened it to additional special needs groups like Adults in Action, which includes adults from other counties. We were overwhelmed with numbers. This resulted in longer wait times for rides, games and food. The experience was not what we strive to provide for our special needs children. 

We are sorry, but in order to provide a safe and enjoyable experience this year, we made the incredibly difficult decision to limit attendance to special needs students in Coweta County and the Rutledge Center Aktion club that has participated for more than two decades. Requests to participate from parents of special needs students in Coweta County not in the school system have been honored in the past and will continue to be honored. Any such requests should be sent to [email protected]. 

The event is staffed completely by volunteers and is free of charge to all attendees.  Many Kiwanians come out during their lunch hour to support this special event.  We are accommodating as many special needs students as our resources and volunteers can support. As our community grows, we are working to streamline operations and recruit more volunteers in hopes that we can accommodate larger groups with more special needs adults in the future. 

The Kiwanis Club of Newnan is a volunteer organization that strives to support a myriad of needs in Coweta County.  Members volunteer over 1200 hours throughout the 11 days of the fair as well as hundreds of additional hours in fair planning throughout the year.  All proceeds from the fair are returned to the community in the form of monetary grants, scholarships, etc.  In 2022 the fair returned $212,000 in scholarships or grants to more than 50 charitable organizations serving the citizens of Coweta County.  The total dollars returned to the community over the past 20 years approaches $5,000,000.

For more information on how Newnan Kiwanis Club offers fair opportunities to special needs adults visit cowetacountyfair.net, and click the link for FairBook.  

Scott C. Cortner
Chairman, Coweta County Fair