Zelie, Harmony fall festivals a sharing success
After seeing Zelienople’s Fall Festival attract hundreds to thousands of people every October, people of Harmony got cracking on creating a fall event the borough could call its own.
Instead of Zelienople Fall Festival and the Harmony Sleepy Hollow Festival competing to bring in the most people, organizers of each said sharing a Saturday for the festivals benefits the people who make both events possible.
On Saturday, this ideology worked once again, when about 3,000 people were expected to attend at least one of the festivals.
“If it’s on the same weekend, they have a big draw over there, we have big draw here, we can bring these things together again, building community,” said MJ McCurdy, organizer of Harmony’s Sleepy Hollow Festival and owner of Bottlebrush Gallery in the borough.
Both festivals, with Zelienople’s running 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, and Harmony’s running 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, attracted autumn enthusiasts with crafts, concessions and a sense of community.
“Everybody knows what to expect,” said Matt Edwards, executive director of the Zelienople Area Business Association, which organized the Zelienople event. “It’s fall-themed, it’s pumpkins, it’s cornstalks, it’s cold weather, flannel shirts, fire pits and all that fun stuff.”
Edwards said the “Route 66” vibe between Zelienople and Harmony right off the highway can make it difficult to attract customers to local businesses, but the fall fest gets people off Interstate 79 to see those businesses.
Harmony’s Sleepy Hollow Festival began after people in the borough saw the success of Zelienople’s Fall Festival. McCurdy said the event was created to highlight Harmony’s businesses and to build relations between the two boroughs. She said the Sleepy Hollow Festival started as a lone farmers market stand in the town square with pumpkins for children to paint, before ballooning into what it is today. It ran as a standalone event its first two years, before the two festivals began coordinating.
To help with coordination, McCurdy facilitated a shuttle to run from the square outside the Harmony Museum to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Zelienople.
Sleepy Hollow Festival organizers also raise funds for a project or organization each year. This year’s project is My Dog’s Park, which is coming to Harmony in the spring.
The dog park, organized by nonprofit Paws With Purpose Community Association, will be located at the end of Spring Street and will tie into the larger comprehensive park and trail system being developed in Jackson Township.
Organizers said the township donated the land and fencing for the park, and funds raised by the festival’s annual pumpkin race, where small pumpkins can be bought for $1 to race down Connoquenessing Creek for a prize, will be allocated toward the dog park.
While the 40th year for Zelienople’s Fall Festival is a notable milestone, Edwards said it wouldn’t have been possible without Ethel Mae Hall. She organized the event as a local business owner for 35 years before she died Oct. 3, 2020, according to Edwards and her obituary.
“As cool as it is to be the director of the 40th one, all the credit for that goes back to her,” Edwards said.
