Festival draws community close
GROVE CITY — At Strawberry Days, there was something for everyone to enjoy at the 26th annual festival in Grove City.
The festival originated as an event organized by independent business owners in downtown Grove City, according to Mary Kay Mattocks, the event chairman. Even today, the event remains independent, and Mattocks said there were about 10,000 to 12,000 people during the three days of the festival from Friday to Sunday.
Included at the festival are a number of vendors, many coming from an area stretching from Erie to West Virginia and east to Akron, Ohio.
One of those vendors includes Cabot-based caricature artist Adam Walmsley, there for his first year at Strawberry Days, he said.
This year, Walmsley is easing back into his love of art after moving back up north from Alabama, he said.
“I did (caricatures) years ago, down in Alabama,” he said, where he could do the job full-time reasonably. But he never got around to starting up his business again when he moved back to Pennsylvania.
He said it's primarily children and couples who ask to get their caricatures drawn, an art that takes Walmsley about 10 minutes, he said.
“(Caricatures are) not realistic, so it's not too hard,” he said, but the hardest part is matching eye color for Walmsley, who is partially colorblind.
Walmsley recently quit his full-time job to do his art part-time, he said. Thankfully, Strawberry Days was his 15th show this year, and he is booked for festivals and other events until the end of July, he said.
For those who would rather look at precious gemstones instead of sitting for a caricature, one man said, “I've got the most unique rocks in northwest Pennsylvania.”
James Byers owns Black Ash Jewelry, a passion he picked up when he lived in North Carolina. Although he is from Guys Mills, Pa., he does a number of shows in Butler County, including the Farkleberry Craft Show in Cranberry Township and the Mule Days in Zelienople.
Byers uses a variety of genuine gemstones that he has mined himself including jade, jasper and agate.
After mining the gemstones, Byers can cut and polish the stones, making jewelry for women, including some crocheting he has recently picked up. He also does his own carvings in the gemstones, including things like owls, doves, skulls and plenty of other designs.
A new attraction for this year's Strawberry Days is the 12-ton sand sculpture that was created by Grove City High School art teachers Chris Bauer and Amanda DiAlesandro.
Bauer and DiAlesandro work together teaching a community art class at the high school and had students volunteer to help work with the 24,000 pounds of sand donated and shipped to Grove City Memorial Park by the Natural Sand Company in Slippery Rock.“The idea of the sand sculpture is to bring people together,” Bauer said. “Whether you are a child, a grandparent or something in between, you can identify with playing in the sand. Maybe you had a sandbox or you go to the beach.”That's exactly why the group had small shovels with them, allowing young children to help move the sand in the initial stages of the project on Friday.The finished sand sculpture was designed to look like a camera, but that only happened after 25 hours of work, DiAlesandro said.With all that hard work, it's no surprise there were so many nonprofit groups selling in the food tent to raise money for local causes.The Grove City High School marching band had a booth selling french fries that will help fund a band trip to Walt Disney World in Florida in 2018, according to Brenda Filer, the manager of the booth.Ultimately, the band typically makes between $5,000 and $6,000 selling st Strawberry Days, Filer said. In addition, the group was selling cookbooks of favorite local recipes, a project put together by the band as a fundraiser. Each cookbook sells for $15, and they are still available, Filer said.On the other side of the food tent, Grove City Christian Academy had more than 65 gallons of funnel cake batter, according to Jodi Sloan, the funnel cake chairman.That booth has been serving up the funnel cakes for 18 years, making about $4,000 each year to help reduce the cost of tuition at the academy.And most importantly, Sloan's job requires her to do some quality control taste tests.Strawberry Days, Mattocks said, is an event that relies on volunteers and sponsoring donations to bring crafts, live entertainment, nonprofit causes and other events to the Grove City Memorial Park each year.
