Harvest Festival comeback in the works

Williamsburg area volunteers banding together

Williamsburg hasn’t seen the beauty of a Harvest Festival parade in five years but that will change this year when the Harvest Festival parade returns. Pictured above is one of the floats in the 2016 parade driven by Lyle Van Allen. (The Leader/Comfort photo)

WILLIAMSBURG – It’s been five years since the last Willamsburg Harvest Festival and a group of like-minded individuals are ready to see it return.

Dave Hess, one of those like-minded people spoke with The Leader this week about what is in the works for the return of the Williamsburg Harvestfest set for September 25-26.

“We had our first meeting August 5th to see if we had enough volunteers to get this going. Sixteen volunteers have already expressed an interest in trying to organize a Harvest Festival for this year.

“We’re trying to organize something that’s not as big as it was in prior years,” said Hess.

He expects this year’s activities to be limited to a parade, a dance at the Williamsburg IOOF hall, an Oddfellows pancake breakfast as well as a Sunday barbecue in conjunction with the Williamsburg market.

He was really pleased with the turnout of volunteers at the first meeting and hopes that enthusiasm will continue as they meet regularly.

The next open meeting is August 19th (8 p.m. at the Williamsburg IOOF Hall) and anyone wanting to get involved with helping out is welcome to attend.

“This will be our first year back and we are hoping to slowly introduce a Harvest Festival back into the Williamsburg community.”

He remarked that he was quite surprised to see the number of new people who have moved into town, who are eager to volunteer and help out with the return of the Williamsburg Harvest Festival.

Williamsburg Harvest Festival was the biggest annual event in Williamsburg for 25 years. Dwindling volunteer numbers led the festival to end with a last hurrah on its 25th anniversary in September 2016.

Since you’re here…

… Thanks for reading this article. Local news is important. We hope that you continue to support local news in your community by reading The Leader, online and in print. Please consider subscribing to the print edition of the newspaper. Click here to subscribe today.

Subscribe to Email Alerts

Enter your email address to subscribe to Email Alerts and receive notifications of new posts by email whenever The Leader publishes new content on our website.