Penn Township’s annual Mega Cruise canceled for 2025
An annual Butler County tradition has passed to the wayside for 2025.
The Penn Township Volunteer Fire Department’s annual Mega Cruise fundraiser event will not be held in 2025.
Jason Graham, fundraising director for the department, says the cancellation is due to the event being unable to use one of the two hangars at its usual venue, the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport. This made it logistically difficult to hold a car cruise event safely.
“The hangar that we’ve been using is right there on the tarmac where the event happens, and that allows people to get in and out,” Graham said. “To host an event like that, and then to have no shelter for anybody to get out of the sun … it was more of a safety issue.”
In previous years, the Mega Cruise brought hundreds of cars and car enthusiasts to the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport to raise money for the volunteer fire department. Last year’s Mega Cruise was the 23rd annual such event, and it had run continuously with the exception of one year at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when it was canceled.
Graham said, while the event didn’t actually raise all that much money for the fire department, it was a vital community event.
“It was a low-money event for us,” Graham said. “But it was a community event more so than a fundraising event for us. The fire department and the local community and the car community could all interact.”
While the Mega Cruise might be off the table for this year, Graham says the fire department is open to ideas from the community for new fundraiser events.
“We’re open for suggestions. We’re looking for people to help put things like this together,” Graham said. “We need people to help. They don’t have to be firemen. We can take doctors, lawyers, housewives; they can help put events together like this or do fundraising similar to this. We’re open to new events in new places.”
Airport manager Stephanie Saracco said the airport authority gave the fire department their approval for the Mega Cruise, but the fire department decided on their own that holding the Mega Cruise would not be feasible.
Despite the cancellation of the Mega Cruise, another department fundraiser — a tool bash — is still scheduled to go ahead on Saturday, May 3, also at the airport. Unlike the Mega Cruise, the Tool Bash will make use of a different hangar which is not connected to a tarmac.
“For the tool bash, we’re not using the tarmac at all,” Graham said. “That makes it feasible for people going directly into the hangar and coming back out.”
