If the Boys and Girls Club has its way, for the next five days Route 9 will be the happiest place on earth. It may also be the most crowded.

The club is holding a carnival in the Omni Foods parking lot from Wednesday to Sunday as a combination fundraiser and cheap vacation for cash-strapped families. The club has rented 14 rides and 14 carnival booths, along with food vendors, and is opening the fair from 6-10 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, and from noon-10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Parking is free and admission is $1, but carnival-goers will have to purchase tickets for rides and games.

“We wanted to give people a fun celebration not too far from home,” said Executive Director David Sellers. “And it will boost our bottom line as we go to the end of the fiscal year.”

The club is using Fiesta Shows, the carnival company that provides rides for the Topsfield and Marshfield fairs. Sellers said the rides will be geared to all ages, with a kiddie coaster for younger fairgoers and a Tilt-A-Whirl and swinging pirate ship for teens and adults.

Sellers said the club worked with the city, including Mayor David Cohen and Board President Lisle Baker, to get permits in order. The club had been looking to host a carnival for years, Sellers said, and managed to get the site set up over the past two to three months through the Dover Amendment, which allows nonprofits to avoid zoning restrictions if they meet certain criteria.

The carnival will be set up in front of the Omni building, and fair-goers will be directed to park around the building and into the Brookline Citizens Bank across Hammond Pond Parkway in the event of overflow, Sellers said. Florence Street will have a temporary tow zone so no fair-goers will park in the residential area, and Route 9 will have a designated turning lane for people coming to the carnival. Attendees will have one entrance, the curb cut just after the office building at 176 Boylston, and one exit, the cut in front of Barnes & Noble and Milton’s. City and State police will help monitor traffic.

The carnival won’t have alcohol vendors, Sellers said, but food booths will be selling fair staples such as fried dough.

“If we’re bringing out people in droves, we’re going to need it,” he said.