Champaign community members had the opportunity to witness a new Guinness World Record attempt this past Saturday during Flannel Fest 2016.

Flannel Fest, Champaign Park District’s newest fall festival, was home to live music, art demos, food trucks, a mustache contest and much more.

The Timberworks Lumberjack Show, a team of ten lumberjack competitors, did several demonstrations throughout the day on speed carving, log rolling, and axe throwing.

However, the festival wanted a record-breaking end with Flannel Fest’s featured event – “Human Mattress Dominoes: Falling For a Cause.”

A human mattress domino agrees to stand in a line, holding a mattress against their back. These volunteers then fall backwards onto the next person in line, creating a domino effect.

Bemco Mattress Company, with the help of This Is It Furniture and Champaign Park District, set out to break the Guinness Book of World Records for Human Mattress Dominoes.

Director of Marketing and Communications Chelsea Norton said many community members who wanted to try and break this record approached her.

“We thought ‘Falling For a Cause’ at a Fall Festival was the perfect fit,” Norton said, “We love working with community groups and other non-profits so we’re really excited to see the impact this can have on area homelessness.”

After the event took place, all the mattresses were donated to shelters across central Illinois such as Courage Connection, Merci’s Refuge, Safe House for Men and Restoration Ministries.

According to the Guinness World Record website, the current Human Mattress Domino record is held by AYD Group and Stylution International Corp. It took place in Wuhan, China this past July with 2,016 mattresses involved.

A GoFundMe page was created by Stephanie Stranko on behalf of Mike Namoff, owner of This Is It Furniture. Fifteen donors raised $1740 of the $100,000 goal — it cost $200 for a mattress, though any donation amount was accepted.

Bemco offered discounted prices to anyone who was interested in purchasing a mattress and becoming a part of the world record.

Johnny Namoff said it was his brother Mike who came up with the idea to involve the entire community in this cause.

“We were looking for an area to do the project,” Johnny Namoff said, “the park district was being very instrumental in how this all came about by offering the park up during their festival and working it together so that there’s people there to enjoy what we’re doing. And it helps get volunteers!”

Aside from being a human domino, companies and individuals who bought a mattress also had the opportunity to individually choose from a list of shelters where they would like their specific mattress donated.

“We’re filming it from above with a drone, as well as from the ground,” he said,  “Then we’re going to follow some of the mattresses going right to the recipients. We’d like to go to YouTube with it to show the community getting together and doing this.”

Although they did not break any records, as a community, the Human Mattress Dominoes event helped donate approximately 300 mattresses to local shelters.

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