Spotlight returns to local businesses
The 36th annual Zelienople Fall Fest returns this weekend in downtown Zelienople, bringing local artisans, small businesses and community members together for an autumn celebration.
The Fall Fest, which gathers craft and food vendors, live music, children's activities, a car cruise and more to the Zelienople area, is managed by the Zelienople Area Business Association.
“People can expect a lot of the same things they've come to know from the Fall Fest,” said Matthew Edwards, administrator of the Zelienople Area Business Association and interim director of the Zelienople Fall Fest. “We'll have the farmers market and fresh produce vendors, a tractor pull hay wagon down Main Street, and a lot of the same crafting vendors that they are used to seeing year after year, along with some new ones.”
Edwards anticipates the festival may garner upwards of 10,000 visitors across the weekend.
“The main goal is to bring people to town and show off everything that Zelienople has to offer,” he said.
The festival features a number of mainstay favorites on both Saturday and Sunday, including the long-awaited chili cook-off, which runs from 12 to 5 p.m.
“It's really kind of the featured event,” said Edwards. “We give away large cash prizes, and the public is welcome to get tickets and taste (chili), and we give away a People's Choice Award. It's really one of the major featured events of the Fall Fest.”
On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., visitors to the Fall Festival can take part in hay rides, live entertainment, sidewalk sales, a farmers market, the Kids Korner Activity Area, pony rides and a petting zoo.
Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. will feature the same events as Saturday with the addition of the Car Cruise at Creekside Plaza from 12 to 4 p.m.
Last year, COVID-19 restrictions and case numbers made it too difficult to hold the festival. Edwards is excited to bring the event back this year.
“Tradition is a big part of what everyone is thinking about in this town, and these are events that have been going on for decades,” Edwards said. “A big thing for members of the community is to see it return after being canceled for a year, and to make sure that it continues.”
Edwards said that both locals and visitors are already excited about the event.
“After we had to pretty much cancel all events across the board in 2020, the buzz about them in 2021 is bigger than we've typically seen,” he said. “People are looking to make sure that this event happens, and to have something to come out and do. Street fair events like this are out in the open air, so we hope that people can feel safe coming out and doing that in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.”
Ethel Mae Hall, a champion of local businesses, founded the Zelienople Fall Fest 37 years ago.Hall died in October 2020 at the age of 82. She was described in a memorial post by Fall Fest organizers as “an integral member of the former Zelienople Chamber of Commerce, its Business Association committee, and ultimately, the formation of this organization as you now know it.”This year's Fall Festival will be the first iteration led by other members of the Business Association instead of Hall, who have pledged to keep the spirit of the event she created flourishing.“It is an understatement to say that ZABA and ultimately, Zelienople, would not be what they are without her contributions,” the post read. “She was a lifelong resident who, with her husband, Lloyd, was incredibly community minded.”“She was always the one who did it,” Edwards said. “We're just trying to carry on the legacy that she left behind when she started it. It was her baby from the beginning. Nobody thinks about the Fall Fest in Zelienople without thinking about Ethel.”
Edwards said that this year's fall festival retains the year-after-year favorites while making some modernization improvements and changes to make things easier for visitors.“A lot of the modernizing changes are in how we are doing business behind the scenes,” Edwards said. “It's about online and digital registration, a more robust website, creating better access for people to find out what's going on and where they can go.”This year's event will also be a new experience for the plethora of new businesses that have opened in Zelienople, including Spring Street Studios, a woman-owned-and-operated art store and teaching studio that was founded earlier this year.“As a new business, we're just really excited to showcase our handmade glass gifts for our first-ever Fall Fest,” said Elizabeth Fortunato of Spring Street Studios. “It seems like there are so many new businesses that for them this will be their first-ever (Fall Fest).”Fortunado said that the studio will be selling tickets for workshops where visitors can create their own glass suncatcher decorations.“It's a nice little activity, to stay warm and make some glass,” Fortunado said. Participants can register in advance, but walk-ins are welcome.Fortunado is looking forward to the Fall Fest and the revitalization that it brings the town.“People are excited to see all of the stuff that has come in,” she said. “Having that year off, I think the community is really excited to have everything back up and running, and it's new and improved in a lot of ways with all the new people.”
