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Arts & Entertainment

Sewickley Harvest Festival Offers A Bonanza of Activities, Wares and Food

The festival will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 10, rain or shine.

The 21st annual Sewickley Harvest Festival is just around the corner.

A community favorite, the festival draws thousands from the area,  said Maleet Gordon, one of the organizers.

“This is just such a popular event. I think it has only gotten more popular over the years,” she said.

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The Kiwanis Club of Sewickley and the Quaker Valley Rotary sponsor the festival. Gordon, a Kiwanis, said members from the social organization plan and supervise the event.

“We use it as a fundraiser so that we can support various community activities, but we really don’t make that much money, so it is more just a goodwill event,” she said.

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Gordon said the event started in 1990 when the two groups took over the arts festival from Sweetwater Center for the Arts.

“It was a true arts festival, but it just became too much for them to run, so we took it over and changed the format,” she said.

The Harvest Festival will feature more than 140 vendors who sell crafts, artwork, jewelry, clothing, books and more. There also will be food vendors, including many of the local churches that sell foods such as gyros, pierogies, hot sausage sandwiches, hot dogs, funnel cakes, shaved ice and popcorn.

Local businesses and restaurants also take part in , with many setting up tables in front of their stores and offering Harvest Festival sales, said Gordon.

There will be children’s activities throughout the day, including the Children’s Corner at the gazebo in Wolcott Park. The Quaker Valley High School Key Club will play host and will provide entertainment, activities and face painting for children. Donations will go to the Ronald McDonald House of Pittsburgh. 

Activities will begin at 10 a.m. and include the Cochran Hose Fire Department Open House, Safety Education, musical entertainment and organizations' information booths, including the YWCA.

“The Presbyterian Church of Sewickley has their “,’ a sort of garage sale and petting zoo, and other churches sponsor events” Gordon said.

The United Methodist Church will have a rummage sale, will have a flea market, will have its weekly , and the will sell barbecue and chicken dinners.

The Kiwanis and Rotary organizations use the event to raise funds to help them provide scholarships and sponsorship to local students and clubs, said Gordon.

More than a fundraiser, the festival is a way for the organizations to be a part of the community, she said.

“We started it with the premise to get the community involved in the community. A lot of people didn’t know about us and some of the other organizations and businesses involved,” she said.

“Now it is an event that the whole community looks forward to,” she said.

The Harvest Festival will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10 . The festival is free and open to the public with many items and food for sale. Parking is free.

There will be vendors on Broad and Thorn streets and in the parking lot off Thorn Street behind and Talbots clothing store in the Village Commons building. 

 

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