The city of Hillsboro will be holding a community cookout on Friday, Sept. 2 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Safety and service director Brianne Abbott said the event was planned to take place at the old firehouse, 108 Gov. Trimble Place and the city is inviting the whole community.

Abbott said the food at the event will be the typical grill-out food like hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, pop, water, cookies and items like that. She said that the people cooking the food would be the mayor, a few city employees, possibly some members of city council and herself.

“I think we’re all excited,” Abbott said. “We’ve been working, you know, as time allows, to make sure it’s a successful event. Trying to get the word out there so everyone knows about it so they can come enjoy.”

She also said that while at the event, tables and chairs are planned to be set up, with Abbott also saying she hoped entertainment like cornhole would be there if it could be arranged.

She said there was a combination of food being donated and some being purchased. She said the city was “fortunate” because a lot of local businesses either donated it or purchased the items at their cost. She said the grills and items like that weren’t purchased because they were things the city already had or were donated.

Abbott said she had to give credit to Mayor John Harsha, because the cookout was his idea and vision. She said the event is seen as a way for people to get together with others in the community. She said the event has been talked about for a “few months” and because they have a lot going on, time got away from them, leading to it being scheduled for this time.

She said it would be up to the community to determine if the event becomes annual.

“If we get tons of feedback and it’s something that they want to continue to do, I think we’ll definitely look into doing it annually,” Abbott said. “Waiting to see what the feedback is. Hopefully, everyone enjoys it and we can make it an annual event on top of some of our other events. Since it is the first one, we’ll kind of gauge everyone’s interest and go from there.”

Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.