Couples pushed their face-painted babies, and dads crouched to show their sons how to hold a golf club "just right" to the sounds of local bands and giddy high school girls at the Auburn City Schools' Fall Festival at Duck Samford Sports Complex Tuesday night.
Whiffs of buttery popcorn and blue cotton candy wafted through the air while families exchanged their orange tickets for the chance to cast a fishing pole for a prize on the other side of a wall or to pet a pair of brown and white goats.
Faith Ball, 5, did both.
After having a yellow butterfly painted on her right cheek and winning a plastic pink frog at the fishing booth, she walked to the petting zoo with her dad and aunt and was "petting the wild animals" as she put it.
"This is the one time of the year that all the schools from kindergarten all the way up to high school come together, and the community, for a fundraiser for our city schools," said Regina Halpin, fall festival coordinator.
However, this year the schools had to delay their annual get-together. The festival was supposed to be last Tuesday, but was postponed a week because of the rainy weather.
But the wait was probably worth it, because the thousands of Auburn families who turned out from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. were greeted by Auburn's first full day of crisp, cool fall weather.
However, the weather isn't the only good thing about the festival.
"One hundred percent of the proceeds go back to the schools," Halpin said. "No one gets paid for putting on this event and the only expenses that do go out of it will be some things that we do have to buy."
The majority of the food and games at the festival are donated or sold at a significant discount, Halpin said.
"The community really puts into this and will donate a lot of food, a lot of services, a lot of their time to make this event," Halpin said.
Getting into the event is free, but attendees must buy tickets to eat or play the games.
Molly Robinson, 12, used one of her tickets to hold a boa constrictor at the Louise Kherer Forest and Ecology Preserve booth.
When not holding pythons, kids could jump in their choice of either a Tigger or a jungle-themed bounce house, toss basketballs, baseballs and darts, munch on popcorn and cotton candy, shoot a BB gun at a target or listen to one of the local bands which performed through the night.
Katy Fisher, 12, lead vocalist of local band Next Row, was one of the performers.
Fisher said her band got a call during the summer about putting on a performance during the fall festival.
She and her bandmates just couldn't say no, Fisher said.
Next Row performed radio tunes like Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" and Miley Cyrus' "The Climb."
Local high schoolers James Mills, 14, and Thomas Britt, 15, said they were having some trouble finding events they thought suited their age group.
Mills squeezed off a few rounds at the BB gun booth, but both said they spent most of the night hanging with their friends.
However, Michael Gropper, 17, said he enjoyed his fall festival experience. A team member of the youth league soccer team, Gropper, was helping keep kids in line at the soccer event.
Gropper said he thinks the fall festival is a great fundraiser, especially during the current mediocre economic conditions.
"It's just a wonderful community event where everybody comes together, and everybody works together and put this on," Halpin said.
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