The Geechee Kunda Cultural Center, along with several other historic Liberty County sites, will be featured in an upcoming season of “The Fireball Run,” according to Jim Bacote, Geechee Kunda site director.
Bacote told the Liberty County Board Commission Tuesday that film crews will be in Liberty County on March 18 to film and work on the series’ ninth season.
“The Fireball Run” is a “life-sized trivia game where America serves as the game board,” according to the Child Rescue Network’s website.
Billed as the “Race to Recover America’s Missing Children,” the series essentially acts as a campaign to help find children who have been abducted, run away or simply disappeared.
According to Genisyss.com, 40 rally teams compete in an eight-day, cross-country trivia game, picking up clues to solve puzzles while traveling to different locations.
Each team is assigned a missing child and must distribute at least 1,000 flyers during their journey to “raise awareness and aid in the recovery of that missing child.”
Since its inception, “The Fireball Run” has helped recover 43 missing children, the website says.
According to Fireballrun.com, season nine’s theme is “Space Race.” Beginning Sept. 25, teams will begin in Hartford, Connecticut, and make their way down the East Coast. The teams will spend Oct. 1-2 in Liberty County before ending in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
“They’re really going to shine a very, very bright light (on Liberty County),” Bacote said, noting that the program reaches an audience of several hundred thousands. “We’re glad, especially since it’s such a worthy and needed and great cause. We’re glad to be a part of it.”
In addition to the TV series, Bacote said that HBO will be filming a documentary at Geechee Kunda from April 17-19.
Bacote also drew the commission’s attention to a recent Conde Nast Traveler article that ranked the 10 best African-American cultural and historical memorials from around the country.
The Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor came in ninth with specific mentions of the Geechee Kunda Museum and the Cumberland Island National Seashore.
Other sites on the list included the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We’re in good company,” Bacote said.
In other business Tuesday, the commission unanimously adopted the Midway subarea land-use map. Melissa Jones of the Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission said Midway officials are expected to adopt the map on Monday.