Strawberry Festival in June will embrace bicentennial theme
Vendors, sponsors welcome to be part of festival on June 13-14
Photo by Tom Rivers: Panek’s Pickin’ Patch and the Orleans County Joint Veterans Council are shown at last year’s Strawberry Festival parade on June 8. The event had a theme, “Out of this World,” to help celebrate the solar eclipse and northern lights phenomenon. This year theme will be, “Celebrating 200 years along the Erie Canal.”
ALBION – The 37th annual Albion Strawberry Festival on June 13-14 is embracing a bicentennial theme for the Erie Canal and Orleans County.
The canal was completed from end to end in 1825, going 363 miles from Buffalo to Albany following eight years of construction. The canal transformed New York into the empire state and brining lots of commerce to Orleans County, especially the first century of the canal.
Orleans County also was established in 1825, when the county split off from Genesee.
The upcoming Strawberry Festival has a theme, “Celebrating 200 years along the Erie Canal.” Becky Karls, the coordinator of the festival committee, said that theme also celebrates 200 years of the Erie Canal, Orleans County, the Presbyterian Church which marked 200 years in Albion last year, and other local municipalities and organizations that have reached that milestone.
She encourages parade participants and arts and crafts vendors to tie into the theme if possible.
Karls said she is excited for some new changes in the festival, as well as the return of many popular mainstays.
New to the festival will be the Shriner mini cars in the parade at 10 a.m. on June 14. There will be expanded kids’ activities in the Family Fun Center, as well as more food vendors, Karls said.
The trackless train also will be back after missing last year’s Strawberry Festival. There will be several musical acts, a car cruise-in, the 5K/8K race, big parade, turtle race and many other events, Karls said.
“I think it’s going to be spectacular,” she said.
The website for the festival has online applications for vendors and sponsors.
Karls said the festival has an active committee working on the event. The committee leaders include Mark Johnson, Business/Information/Raffle vendors; Trevor Thaine, Craft/Artisan/Farm Market vendors; Mike Bonnewell, Parade participants; Jeff Holler, Food Booth vendors; Taryn Moyle, Family Fun Center; Bill Pileggi, Music/Bands Festival performers; Val Pettit, School Royalty/Artwork; and Becky Karls, Turtle Race Tickets/Car Cruise In/Other Info–Festival Chairperson.
Their contact information is on the festival website.
Karls also announced the committee picked Tom Rivers to the grand marshal of the parade for his nearly 30 years of covering the local news as a reporter/editor and also for leading the effort to have a monument built last year for the 15 victims of the 1859 bridge collapse in Albion.
