The year was 1986.  I was only a mere 10 year old little girl. Some grown-ups in Cleveland, Ohio thought it was a brilliant idea to release 1.5 million balloons to raise funds for the United Way of Cleveland, calling it BalloonFest ‘86. In addition to raising money for charity, BalloonFest ‘86 was giving the city of Cleveland a lot of publicity since 1.5 million balloons would be the world record at the time.

If you follow this blog, most likely you are environmentally-minded and can predict that this would be a total DISASTER. Amazingly most people in Cleveland did not see the impending doom. Cleveland Police and Firefighters signed off on this project. 2,500 high school students signed up to volunteer to inflate balloons. This means teachers, principals, school administrators and parents all thought Balloonfest ‘86 posed no threat to society and even had their students participate in this. Where did they think that 1.5 million balloons would go? Mars? The ocean? Canada?