LEHI, Utah — Companies in Utah are coming together to build a giant blanket fort and hopefully break an official world record in the process.
The event was organized Thursday by Talking Tacos, Moxie Weighted Blankets and Real Salt Lake with the goal to build a 10,000-square-foot blanket fort in Rio Tinto Stadium, breaking the current world record of 6,736 square feet.
An official from the Guinness Book of World Records is attending the event to verify the size of the fort to see if it will be big enough after a Make-A-Wish child, 5-years-old, places the final blanket to finish the fort.
According to development officer for Make a Wish Utah Summer Ehrmann, planning for the event only began six weeks prior.
“Six weeks is a testament to what the Tacos Together team can pull together here a mere six weeks ago,” she said. “This was just an idea, and today we’ve got a 10,000-square-foot recording breaking blanket for it.
While Ehrmann sees this as a momentous event for Lehi, Utah's record books, she believes the greatest thing about it is the community.
“Everybody’s coming together, people are helping each other, people are chatting with one another,” she said. “And kids are everywhere just having a blast right in their scooters.”
The CEO for Tacos Together, Paul Shin, said the idea to have this event came to him when his 7-year-old daughter wanted to watch a movie with her whole family inside a blanket fort.
“We took that idea to my team and I said, ‘Hey, what if we made the biggest blanket fort ever?’” Shin shared. “Luckily, they put up with my craziness and this is where we’re at.”
Once the plan started coming together, Shin reached out to Real Salt Lake group sales representative Keagan Robb to make that dream a reality.
“He’s done lots of networking events and that’s how we met,” said Robb. “So we thought it would be mutually beneficial, and it has. It was crazy.”
According to Robb, one of Real Salt Lake’s core values is community and getting everyone to come together is something they always try to accomplish.
“We’re ready for the world record,” he said.
All the blankets used to create the fort will afterward be donated to Road Home shelter.
This article was written by Ryan Marion for KSTU.
