The 43rd Annual Adel Sweet Corn Festival took place on Saturday and despite the warm temperature people filled the streets of Adel.

This year the festival celebrated two-fold with it being the annual celebration that brought with it plenty of fun activities, and of course seven tons of free sweet corn, but this year also marked the 175th birthday of the City of Adel as the town was founded just one year after Iowa became a state. Mayor Jim Peters says one of the important factors of Adel growing through the years has been the people.

“It’s the people, one word it’s the people and it’s the people that put this on, everyone that came down to shuck the corn, all the volunteers for the 5k run, if you go along the route there are a lot of volunteers that help keep the route safe for the runners, and so it is the people.”

There are many people involved with helping make the Adel Sweet Corn Festival a success each year from countless volunteers and the community along with organizers and sponsors and Adel Partners Chamber of Commerce Director Deb Bengtson says the festival is a big undertaking and takes the collective effort of everyone involved to bring so many people into Adel to have a good time.

“We couldn’t have done it without everybody. It’s a big undertaking and it’s amazing how many people volunteer to go do things and step up and never question anything at all.”

Bengtson says they have a program that will be able to tell them approximately how many people were in Adel during the festival.