Fort Wayne Duck Race Raises $213,000 for Iris Families

Weigand Construction said 13,328 rubber ducks raised $213,000 for Iris Family Support Center at Fort Wayne’s 38th annual duck race on July 25, 2026. The first bird across the line on the St. Mary’s River still paid $5,000.

The park day ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Promenade Park, with the flock going in at noon under the Wells Street bridge. Food trucks, music, and a kids’ zone filled the hours around a fundraiser most people treat as a summer carnival.

The 38th Race Raised $213,000 With 13,328 Ducks

Six days after the drop, Weigand Construction posted the official count from the title sponsor’s own account. The 2026 flock was larger than 2025. The check was not.

A huge splash at our 38th Annual Weigand Duck Race! 🐥

13,328 ducks hit the St. Marys River. Altogether, they helped raise $213,000 for the mission of Iris Family Support Center. 💛#IrisFamilySupportCenter #DuckRace pic.twitter.com/WXe3KulfJo

— Weigand Construction (@WeigandConstr) July 31, 2026

In 2025 the same company recorded 12,500 ducks and $213,800. That is 828 more toys in 2026, a 6.6 percent jump in birds, and $800 less in cash. Iris still lists winners and prize packages on its page for the 38th annual Weigand Construction Duck Race.

THREE YEARS OF THE WEIGAND DUCK RACE

Iris’s 2024 year-in-review put 14,368 ducks and $205,451 on the 36th race, the last one run under the SCAN name. The two years since the rebrand have settled near $213,000, whether 12,500 ducks go in or 13,328 do. The river show can swell. The donated total has hit a ceiling.

Who Pays for Iris When the River Clears

Iris Family Support Center is the child-welfare agency formerly called SCAN, Stop Child Abuse and Neglect. Its own vision page says it reaches more than 45,000 children and families a year across 41 northern Indiana counties, with more than 150 staff and a budget near $15 million.

The IRS filing for the fiscal year ending September 2025, posted in Nonprofit Explorer, shows revenue of $14,200,218 and expenses of $14,851,509. That is a deficit of $651,291, after a $1,218,809 deficit the year before.

IRIS MONEY, FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 2025

• Program services: $13,194,276, or 92.9 percent of revenue, mostly contracted work rather than carnival tickets.
• Contributions: $904,386, or 6.4 percent of revenue; the 2025 duck race’s $213,800 is 23.6 percent of that donated slice.
• Share of the whole budget: $213,000 is 1.50 percent of $14,200,218, which is why the park can feel huge while the ledgers barely move.
• Payroll: Other salaries and wages were $7,636,331, or 51.4 percent of expenses, the line that actually keeps counselors on the clock.

If every 2026 duck had been a $5 ticket, face value would have been $66,640. The $213,000 haul leaves about $146,360 that had to come from sponsors, packages, and larger gifts wrapped around those numbered toys. The yellow drop is the picture. The invoices are not.

$4.85 of Every $5 Ticket Goes to Services

CEO Dee Szyndrowski, who also holds an MS, MBA, and LMHC, has used the same split for years, first under SCAN and then under Iris. Of each $5 duck, $4.85 is supposed to go straight to services. That is 97 cents on the dollar. Fifteen cents stays with the cost of running the game.

For each $5 duck purchased, $4.85 goes straight to Iris Family Support Center’s services, allowing us to walk alongside parents as they navigate life’s hardest job

Dee Szyndrowski, CEO, Iris Family Support Center

The 2026 board kept the cash hook that puts people on the rail. First place was $5,000. The next four ducks also paid cash, last place paid cash, and Iris advertised more than 25 prize packages plus $100 for the last duck pulled from the river.

HOW THE 2026 PRIZE BOARD WAS BUILT

• Grand prize: $5,000 to the first numbered duck across the line.
• Cash behind it: The next four finishers took cash, and last place was paid too, including a $100 last-duck prize.
• The rest of the board: More than 25 packages sat behind those five cash spots, which is how a $5 toy sells beside a construction-company banner.
• The split: $4.85 of each $5 ticket is pledged to Iris services, the figure Szyndrowski repeats because the race is a licensed charitable game, not a souvenir stand.

She called the Saturday “the perfect encapsulation of Iris’ mission as we celebrate family, community, and partnership.” The sentence works as a pitch. It also names the gap. Parenting support happens in offices and living rooms. The river is where the city is willing to show up.

Families Would Not Walk Through a Door Labeled Abuse

SCAN’s board and leadership changed the name to Iris Family Support Center on January 15, 2025, after a 50th anniversary year. Whitney Craig, director of marketing and communications, said the old title sent the wrong message once the work had shifted toward families who had never been in the abuse system.

“Our services have evolved. Our mission stays the same,” Craig said. “We are here to stop child abuse and neglect, but we’ve learned that a big part of that mission is to get to and support families who have never experienced abuse and neglect.”

For years, we have heard from the community that they are nervous to walk through a door labeled ‘Abuse and Neglect.’

Dee Szyndrowski, CEO, on the January 2025 name change

Board chair Katie Bergman Miller said the iris flower shares the agency’s purple color and stands for courage, hope, and wisdom, and that the new name was meant to describe the full range of work. The mission line on the vision page still ends with “Stop Child Abuse and Neglect.” The door no longer says it.

That is the same problem the duck race solves in public. A yellow toy on the St. Mary’s River is an easier ask than a visit to a child-protection office. Healthy Families walks with new parents. Family Connections takes counseling, divorce, separation, and domestic-violence recovery. Family Resource Centers try to catch people before a crisis. The carnival is how Fort Wayne is asked to pay for a front door people will actually use.

The Race Moved to Promenade Park in 2021

The 33rd Weigand Construction Duck Race was the first one staged at Promenade Park, in 2021. Larry Weigand, the contractor’s CEO, called the new riverfront “the perfect venue” that year and said the families win because the money goes into programs. The course has not moved since.

THE RACE ON THE ST. MARY’S

1. 2021: The 33rd annual race debuts at Promenade Park, shifting a decades-old fundraiser onto the new downtown riverfront.
2. 2024: The 36th race, still under the SCAN name during the agency’s 50th anniversary year, sells 14,368 ducks and raises $205,451.
3. January 15, 2025: SCAN becomes Iris Family Support Center, six months before the next drop.
4. July 26, 2025: The 37th race puts 12,500 ducks in the river and raises $213,800, the first edition under the Iris name.
5. July 25, 2026: The 38th race lifts the flock to 13,328 ducks and closes at $213,000.

Volunteers in the 2024 race lined the banks with pool noodles and worked the water in boats once the first ducks had crossed, a recovery job that has to happen every year because thousands of plastic birds do not exit on their own. Iris’s 2026 page still sold the view of the Wells Street bridge as the place where every seat watches the drop and the pickup.

Weigand Staff Sold 2,620 Ducks Before Race Day

Weigand Construction has put its name on the race for the full 38-year run. The Fort Wayne contractor dates itself to Henry Weigand repairing brick sidewalks in 1906, with Larry Weigand, his great-grandson, now CEO. The duck race is how that firm keeps a public tie to child-welfare work in the city where it builds.

The company’s 2025 recap said employees Carol Scott and Tara Leto sold 2,620 duck sponsorships for the 37th race. That pair alone moved about 21 percent of the 12,500 ducks that year. Weigand also counted 25 service projects and 500 volunteer hours across Midwest nonprofits in 2025, with the duck drop listed beside those shifts rather than as a one-off picnic.

Tara Leto is also Weigand’s employee wellness program director. The same office that sells ducks in June and July is the office that has to explain, to its own crews, why a child-abuse agency is the beneficiary. Larry Weigand put it without the branding in 2021: the families win because the money goes into programs, so the kids have support and the parents have support.

Weigand posted the 2026 figures on July 31. The Form 990 already on file shows a fiscal year that spent $651,291 more than it took in. The Saturday flock can get bigger. The donated check has not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does the Fort Wayne Duck Race Work?

Each numbered duck in the St. Mary’s River matches a ticket sold under Indiana Gaming License 002295, reference 164233, so the drop is a licensed charitable game rather than a casual raffle. Ducks go in at noon; the first number across the line wins, and the remaining flock is pulled after those early birds finish.

What Services Does Iris Family Support Center Provide?

Iris runs Healthy Families visiting for new parents, Family Connections counseling for divorce, separation, and domestic-violence recovery, community Family Resource Centers, court-ordered programs, training classes, and car-seat inspections. Its main Fort Wayne office is at 500 W. Main Street, and program questions go to programs@irisfamily.org.

How Do You Buy a Duck Ticket?

Online sales for the 2026 race closed at 5 p.m. on Friday, July 24, with morning-of sales at Promenade Park from 10 to 11 a.m. and phone sales at (260) 421-5000. Iris also used volunteer ticket agencies around town and parked people at its Main and Fairfield office, with a free trolley to the park from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Why Did SCAN Become Iris Family Support Center?

The board made the change on January 15, 2025, after the agency’s 50th anniversary year, and worked with the Ferguson Agency in Fort Wayne on discounted terms for the visual shift. Board chair Katie Bergman Miller said the iris flower shares the group’s purple color and stands for courage, hope, and wisdom, which is the symbolism they wanted on the door instead of the words “abuse and neglect.”

How Do You Report Child Abuse or Neglect in Indiana?

Iris tells the public to call the Indiana Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at (800) 800-5556, the state reporting line, rather than treating the agency as the first place to file a report. Fundraising questions go to rd@irisfamily.org, separate from that hotline.