What a festival! A day designed to bring farms, local businesses, and the community together! To celebrate local farms and food, support our local economy, and give community members experiences that help us all learn and grow together. How’d we do? We had three food trucks sell completely out of food. 37 businesses attended. We counted about 2,000 attendees coming in the gates! Not just Essex County residents came; we asked people as they walked in where they came from and about a quarter came from across NY as well as eleven other states and Canada. A few quotes from businesses:
“We sell our produce in a few stores around here and it was a great opportunity for us to meet those customers in person.” Susan Cerny, Tangleroot Farm
“I brought more bread than last year and sold out again!” Dan Rivera, Triple Green Jade Farm
“After my beekeeping talk a local teacher told me she is planning to teach some of the topics I covered with her class this year.” Tim McGarry, Boquet Valley Apiary
“I always sell every single pizza I can produce on festival day. Plus, the new children’s activities were a huge hit with my family!” Justin Beaulieu, Full Cord Pizza
“I sell my local-wood crafts at several summer and fall events, but the Adirondack Harvest Festival is the best; I will definitely come again next year!” Erica Yaworski, Eclectically Ethereal
With so much going on, we won’t list all of the amazing bands, organizations, businesses and educators that made the day so special; check out the beautiful map and schedule from the festival page and see what we mean! But we’d like to point out a few things that were new this year. First, after the leadership of Nancy Page and Heidi Sweet, who created this festival four years ago, Adirondack Harvest became the main organizer this year (with Nancy and Heidi still raising all of the funds, thank goodness!) We also created the Young Farmers’ Circle and Hitchin’ Post, areas designed for kids to learn about agriculture in fun ways— think animals and art! We also featured contests, such as the popular straw bale toss, where people got a taste for the strength required for farmers to throw just one of those bales (and learned the difference between hay and straw!) Prizes were designed to get people back out on the local food scene after the festival: $25 gift cards to an Essex County farmers’ market for this season. Finally, we launched two hands-on workshops this year. Great music, amazing food, local brews and oh so much fun!
Thank you again to our sponsors for making this all possible. International Paper, ROOST/Adirondacks USA, Cloudsplitter Foundation, Champlain National Bank, Chazy Westport Communications, Yankee Farm Credit, Stewart’s, North Country Public Radio, Cornell Small Farms, the Hub on the Hill, CCE Essex, and Adirondack Harvest.
Let us know if you’d like to help, plan, organize or sponsor next year!
Be sure to follow our Facebook page, and the Adirondack Harvest Facebook page for more events!
Finally, contact us if you’d like any items from the Gift Shop (documentaries Small Farm Rising and Three Farms, Adirondack Harvest cups & mugs, and the full collection of all four beautiful Festival posters, perfect to decorate in your restaurant or business! All proceeds go to Adirondack Harvest.
