‘Beat the Bitter’ to provide outlet against winter in North Liberty this weekend

On Saturday, North Liberty residents are being encouraged to bundle up, get outside and enjoy some good old-fashioned winter fun during the Beat the Bitter Winter Games and Good Cheer Festival.

The festival was put into motion by North Liberty resident Anne Aguirre, who moved to North Liberty from Coralville two years ago.

Aguirre and her husband, Gabe, brainstormed with Leighton Smith, who also lives in North Liberty about what they could do as community members to create some winter fun.

'With the winter, (we were) noticing that we kind of loose contact with our neighbors and everything sort of becomes a little isolated,” Aguirre said. 'We sort of wanted to change that.”

The three worked with the city of North Liberty to organize the event.

'We're looking forward to getting people out of this midwinter hibernation that we all kind of hit,” said Nick Bergus, communications director for the city of North Liberty. 'I'm really looking forward to people just getting out and building community and seeing their neighbors and playing and having a good time.”

The festivities begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday with the Indomitable Snow Run 5K obstacle race at Penn Meadows Park. At 10:30 a.m., the Iowa City Ducks Rugby team will do a demonstration there. At 11:30 a.m., a kickball tournament begins. Throughout the day, there will be other winter games, leading up to a beach party at 6 p.m. at Reds Alehouse.

'This is a great example of residents putting on a great event that they'd like to see and partnering with us to make this happen,” Bergus said.