The 5th annual Binghamton Pond Festival will start this weekend and it will feature about 150 hockey teams of all ages. Proceeds from the event benefit the Mental Health Association of the Southern Tier and their Do it For Daron campaign, an organization that focuses on youth mental health and suicide awareness. A thousand people are expected to attend over the next three weekends. All money raised will stay within the area despite the fest getting national interest.

"Doing this event I wanted to find a charity locally that will keep the money locally that I can donate to and hopefully it'll make some sort of difference in the area and a difference to the people that received the money," said Tytus Haller, the founder of Binghamton Pond Fest. "The month of January is the bust time. this really has turned into a second full-time job for me. We usually take the month of February and maybe some of March off but then we really have to start planning for the next event the following year, in order to do a good job."

Over the course of three weekends, the Binghamton Pond Festival will have scheduled tournaments. January 11th & 12th will have over 50 youth teams participating. The weekend of January 17th-19th will have an adult 3 on 3 tournaments with 30 teams, and January 24th-26th will have an adult 4 on 4 tournaments with 40 teams participating.