Guinness World Records bubble artist brings free shows to St. George |
To help feed children facing food insecurity across the state |
Jarom Watts is listed in the 2009 Guinness World Records for both the Largest Free-Floating Soap Bubble (outdoors) at 483 cubic feet and the Largest Soap Bubble Chain at 15 bubbles. Both records have since been broken, but Watts still practices his craft for charity.
Watts will perform two bubble shows at the Red Cliffs Mall on Friday, July 10, at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., respectively. Both shows are free to attend, and each show will last approximately 40 minutes. Watts will also be encasing volunteers in giant soap bubbles at the Tonaquint Park at 7 p.m. on the same day.
As for why Watts is providing free entertainment to mall-goers, the goal is to raise funds for Utah school districts to provide food to children in need.
“It was an easy decision for me, because I love working with kids, and I think kids are more at risk than adults, and so I said, I definitely want to work with the school districts, and so my interaction with the Washington County School District was very recent,” Watts said.
Watts has been performing across the state to raise awareness of the fundraiser, working with the Granite School District to build the website and distribute funds to all Utah school districts.
“Ideally, this is how it would go, I would come down to Red Cliffs Mall, I would do my performance, I’d encourage people to make a donation, and when they got to make their donation, they would select Washington County School District as the recipient, and then the funds get dispersed from Granite down to Washington (County) School District,” Watts said.
According to the Washington County School District report card issued by the Utah State Board of Education, approximately 31% of enrolled students during the 2024-2025 school year were identified as economically disadvantaged.
Across the state, 1 in 5 kids reportedly face food insecurity. Watts expressed his desire to alleviate some of that uncertainty through his shows. “There’s kind of two major things that the school districts can help with,” Watts said. “One is helping pay off school lunch debt, which is a huge issue right now in Utah. I think collectively, there’s probably over $2 million worth of school lunch debt across all the districts, so they can use the funds to help pay off school lunch debt.”
The other way school districts can help is through district pantry packs, which distribute food to students in need to ensure they’re fed during evenings and weekends.
Watts wanted to emphasize that he is not taking any cut from the pool of funds raised during these performances. In fact, Watts said, he used money out of his own pocket to travel across the state for these performances.
“I’m essentially my own sponsor, in the sense that I’m just a guy who really cared about this project and wanted to do it, and over the last six years, I’ve been doing plasma donations as my primary source of fundraising, if you want to call it that, so I didn’t have to take any cut of the donations,” Watts said. |
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