By Susan Redden

sredden@joplinglobe.com

CARTHAGE, Mo. — It will be another week before early campers start to arrive, but Carthage city crews and brothers at the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix have plans well under way for the annual Marian Days celebration that starts Aug. 7.

The grounds of the CMC campus at Fairview and Grand Avenues are being prepared for the arrival of thousands of Vietnamese Catholic visitors, and neighborhoods around the campus are being readied as well.

Carthage police have gone door to door to homes surrounding the grounds to learn which residents will allow visitors to use their yards for camping. The event fills up motels throughout the area. Many of the celebrators camp on or near the CMC complex so they can visit with friends and relatives, and for easy access to Marian Days activities such as Masses and other religious services, entertainment and meals served by churches.

“We’ve gone door to door, and we mailed letters to homes where we couldn’t make personal contact,” said Capt. Randee Kaiser of the Carthage Police Department.

Police check with neighbors to learn if they will open their yards for camping or other uses by the visitors.

“We document their wishes and keep it on file,” Kaiser said. “Some people don’t want campers. Some people welcome them and have had the same families use their yards year after year.”

Kaiser said fewer families camp in neighborhoods since CMC has opened up additional property, including a large tract across Fairview Avenue to the south of the main complex.

He said Carthage police also are organizing the security detail that will work the event. In addition to Carthage police, officers from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department and the Joplin, Webb City, Carterville, Carl Junction and JasCo Metropolitan police departments are signed up to help provide round-the-clock security. Officers staff a command post, patrol the grounds and man barricades that control traffic into and out of the complex.

The costs for the annual celebration are shared, with the city of Carthage paying 25 percent and CMC 75 percent.

Most of the costs are to pay for additional police officers so the Carthage department can maintain normal staffing in other parts of the city during the celebration.

Kaiser said a mobile command center from the Missouri Department of Public Safety will be used as security headquarters, and officers will go get the vehicle on Friday. The event will start Thursday, Aug. 7. Celebrators often arrive early, and some who live nearby will come on the weekend before to set up tents in prime locations.

The early arrivals are one of the changes he has noticed about Marian Days in the 14 years he has been in Carthage, said Brother Thomas Dien, who is Marian Days secretary.

“They come earlier every year,” he said.