Six Flags supports Shrine Circus community performance
Date: 4/26/2011
April 27, 2011By Debbie Gardner
Assistant Editor
AGAWAM — Six Flags New England has teamed up with the Melha Shrine Circus to help make the circus dreams of some local children and adults come true this year.
The park has agreed to sponsor the circus' annual community service performance, which takes place on April 29 at 4 p.m. All 4,800 tickets to this matinee will be given away, free of charge, to local non-profit organizations.
"When they stepped in to sponsor that [free] show — which we have done for 57 years — it added an awful lot to the investment we have in children," Al Zippin, circus chairman for the Melha Shrine Temple on Longhill Street in Springfield, said. "I think it's a wonderful partnership for both of us ... We're both trying to provide good, family entertainment."
Zippin said the circus routinely gets requests for 10,000 tickets from area non-profits every circus season, and do their best to accommodate as many organizations as possible. At the request of Six Flags, Zippin said they have added Mass Mentoring Partnership — the state's only organization dedicated to expanding youth mentorship across Massachusetts — to the non-profits that will receive free circus tickets this year.
"Eight hundred of the tickets will go to Mass Mentoring," Jason Freeman, president of Six Flags New England, said, adding that the United Way would be another recipient of tickets to the performance.
Freeman said partnering with the Shrine Circus to support their non-profit performance was just one of "a number of things we're doing this year," including hosting Baystate Medical Center's Children's Miracle Network walk on June 12, making a donation to Agawam's Street of Flags earlier this month and assisting with the town's upkeep of the RiverWalk bikeway on River Road.
"It's all about being a good neighbor and investing back into our community," Freeman said.
The 2011 Melha Shrine Circus will run from April 28 to May 1 at the Eastern States Coliseum in West Springfield. Tickets are $14 per person. The circus box-office hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on circus days.
