Scavenger race spotlights downtown Greensburg features

Kelly Mazon and her three friends nearly missed a valuable landmark Saturday morning as they raced along the sidewalks of downtown Greensburg.

Looking up near the corner of West Second Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, they used their phones to snap a shot of a spiral staircase — part of a fire escape, and one of the objects they were on the lookout for during the Greensburg Scavenger Race.

Mazon, of Delmont, and the three other women composed the “Jersey 4” entry, one of 15 teams competing in the event that combined a timed race with a scavenger hunt.

“It’s something fun to do outside,” Mazon said. The race also is challenging, she admitted. “You’re trying to go so fast and beat everybody, you’re not paying attention to details.”

Saturday marked the third running of the Greensburg Scavenger Race since its introduction in 2017 by a local entertainment venue, 60 Minute Missions Escape Room.

Teams competed for bragging rights and gifts from local businesses as they puzzled out rhyming clues to find 16 spots in downtown Greensburg where they had to complete tasks to learn hints pointing to the next location.

This year’s event had been scheduled for April 18, but it was delayed three months because of concerns related to the covid-19 pandemic.

To comply with social distancing guidelines, this year’s locations were mostly outside and all within walking distance of the Westmoreland County Courthouse, said escape room co-owner Brian McCollum. Competitors, grouped in teams of two to four, were required to wear masks at some stops, and the entry fee was increased to cover the costs of sanitizing procedures and provision of a separate set of needed “props” for each team.

“Every team has their own equipment at any challenge that requires it,” McCollum said, adding, “We have disposable masks for racers who don’t have their own.”

When they pulled up to Greensburg’s train station, team members split duties, with one person squirting a water gun at a paper held by another, in order to dampen the surface and reveal a vital clue. At St. Clair Park, the competitors were asked to knock plastic cups from atop poles by tossing flying discs at them.

While trekking between destinations, in temperatures approaching 90 degrees, teams could make bonus side trips.

“We created some extra optional perks during the race,” McCollum said. “If a team would choose to take a team selfie in a particular location, it would deduct time from their final time.”

Each team also gradually collected puzzle pieces that, when fitted together correctly, with an online assist, revealed additional information for completing the race.

Teamwork and strategy are important components for running the race successfully.

McCollum noted teams were able to visit the first five locations in any order before arriving at the race’s first checkpoint.

“You have to decide if it’s better to go to the locations as you solve the clues or to solve them all and then figure out your best path,” he said.

Alaina Deitch, part of a Greensburg-based team, joined forces with her husband, Cameron, and mother Tammy Geer, competing against another group including Deitch’s sister, Breanne Englert of Mt. Pleasant.

Englert “did it last time, and she said it was super fun,” her sister said. “They were going around crazy like we are now. She did a good job of promoting it.”

Deitch’s team were nearly stumped solving one of the clues. Still, they were the first to reach the midway checkpoint, about 90 minutes after the start.

“We had to go get a QR code at the Sun Dawg Café, and it took us 10 minutes to figure it out,’ ” Deitch said.

McCollum decided to try a scavenger race in Greensburg after he enjoyed competing in similar events in other communities.

He said the Greensburg races have been designed to highlight local merchants and some lesser-known features in the city.

“We thought that Greensburg could use a little bit of a spotlight on some of its businesses that are tucked away,” McCollum said.

The 2018 race coincided with Greensburg Craft Beer Week. This year’s stops included the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department Museum, located behind city hall.

This year’s race also included a charitable component. One of the tasks competitors had to perform was to find food items provided by the race organizers and deposit them in a mini community food pantry located at a parklet on South Pennsylvania Avenue.

“We’ll end up stocking that little pantry as part of the race,” McCollum said.