NORMAL -- If you’ve ever wanted to shoot a puck against a professional hockey player or throw a pitch to a minor league baseball player, you’ll get your chance during this year’s Festival of Trees.

The 16th annual event runs Thursday through Saturday at the Interstate Center, 2301 W. Market St. Proceeds benefit programs at The Baby Fold, 612 Ogelsby Ave., Normal, which serves children and families with programs including adoption, foster care, residential treatment and family support.

“This is a budget item for us,” said Baby Fold spokesman Pete Moore. “It helps offset cuts — especially this year. Our prevention program got cut hard, but was restored to last year’s rate. The question now is will there be funding in January?”

This year’s goal is $210,000, Moore said. Last year’s event netted $191,518.

Besides the usual festival events — the holiday style show, family night, worship service and Sunday brunch — organizers hope to attract even more families with the new “Sportstacular” event from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

“It’s a new demographic for the festival,” said Melissa Manness, festival chairwoman, and builds on the idea of “Bloomington-Normal as a community is as much involved in sports as family.”

The event will include athletes from the Prairie-Thunder hockey team, the CornBelters and Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball teams, and Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan university.

ISU head basketball coach Tim Jankovich and IWU head basketball coach Ron Rose will give motivational talks and there will be live and silent sports-related auctions. Items will include the first pitch at a Peoria Chiefs’ game, a birthday party with flag football on the Bloomington Extreme field, and a chance to be coach-for-a-day at IWU.

Saturday’s special event will be “A Concert Among The Trees,” which premiered last year. It will feature a cappella recording artists Chapter 6, a seven-man group formed more than a dozen years ago on the campus of Decatur’s Millikin University. The group went professional in 2002 and has earned numerous awards and recognitions.

One of is members, Luke Menard, was an American Idol top 10 finalist, and three others in the group are Bloomington-Normal natives.

Naturally, the festival also will feature about 80 decorated trees, including a 10-foot tree by Jeffrey Alans; about 20 celebrity trees; and assorted wreaths, centerpieces, baskets and other holiday decorations for purchase and/or bid. This year’s theme is “Shine the Light.”

There also will be the annual gift shop, cookie shop, gingerbread village and Jingle Bell Junction.

Moore said there are a couple of changes this year. The cost of admission is increasing $1 and the auction of trees will close at 1 p.m. Sunday instead of 3 p.m.

This likely will be the last year the festival will be at the Interstate Center. Birkey’s Farm Stores plans to purchase the Interstate Center and Moore said the ballroom, where the bulk of the festival is set up, won’t be available.

“We’re looking at other spaces,” he said. The Festival of Trees needs between 30,000 and 40,000 square feet.