Grove City Strawberry Days festival returns this weekend
One of Grove City’s and Mercer County’s summer traditions returns this weekend with the 34th annual Strawberry Days festival Friday through Sunday, June 6 to 8, at Grove City Memorial Park.
Mary Kay Mattocks, organizer and chairwoman of Strawberry Days, said that regular visitors to the festival can expect a consistent experience each year.
“It’s one of those festivals where if it’s not broken, we don’t fix it,” Mattocks said. “We just continue to make sure that it’s a family-friendly festival.”
However, Mattocks said that younger visitors can look forward to some new attractions in 2025, including an expanded “shortcake patch” play area for children, and a group of mimes will provide additional entertainment. There will also be meet-and-greets with costumed characters SpongeBob SquarePants on Friday and Bluey on Saturday.
Mattocks stressed that every part of Strawberry Days — from the vendors to the entertainment — is strictly nonprofit, and admission is free.
“Every penny goes back into the festival; and every year we work very hard to provide things that are free for the children,” Mattocks said. “We have a caricature artist who comes from Pittsburgh, and his drawings are free. Sand art is free. Face painting is free. Rock painting is free. Families can bring their kids and enjoy something that they don’t have to pay for. You can come out and just spend the whole day here and not spend a penny.”
Mattocks said there will be 18 food and drink vendors on hand at the festival. There is only one vendor for each main delicacy to prevent competition. Among the more popular food booths each year are the French fries booth operated by the Grove City Area High School marching band, and the funnel cake booth operated by Grove City Christian Academy.
“The organizations (selling food) are all nonprofit, and there’s only one booth per item. So once that item is taken, nobody else can have it, so therefore there’s no competition among the nonprofits,” Mattocks said. “We have 18 food booths, and they’re all individual items.”
Among the delicacies to enjoy at the event are hamburgers, pizza, steak hoagies, sloppy Joes, meatball subs, gyros and, of course, lots of items with the word “strawberry” in the name, including the ever-popular Amish doughnuts.
Although rain showers are forecast for Grove City on Saturday, Mattocks said the event — barring an extreme event such as lightning — would go on.
“We’ve had festivals where it has rained all three days; and we’ve had festivals where it hasn’t rained at all,” Mattocks said. “It is a rain-or-shine festival. We would not shut it down, unless we would have an electrical storm.”
More in Pennsylvania News
