Fair canceled due to COVID
The Northwest Georgia Regional Fair canceled its annual September event. Officials say it could be rescheduled for November.
Organizers of the the Northwest Georgia Regional Fair in Calhoun has announced that this year’s annual event has been canceled, though the fair could be rescheduled for November.
The majority of fairs across the country have been cancelling this year’s events due to the COVID-19 virus. Many fall fairs across Georgia have announced cancellations plans, including the Georgia Mountain Fair, Gwinnett County Fair, Gilmer County Fair, Chattooga County Fair, Chattahoochee Mountain Fair and many others, said Bud Owens, president of the Cherokee Capital Fair Association, which produces the annual event.
That list will continue to grow as event dates near. Organizers of the Northwest Georgia Regional Fair in Calhoun waited to determine if they could continue with their traditional September dates. Being six weeks away from set up, they had to decide and have joined the list of cancellations.
The fair had been scheduled for
Sept. 11-19, featuring North Georgia’s own Peachtree Rides, livestock and agricultural shows, blue ribbon competitions, pageants and numerous vendors will not be held this year.
“We have been closely watching the rise in hospitalizations in the area and continue to see an upward trend. Our area hospitalizations are at their highest since the beginning of the virus. We simply cannot risk
FAIR,
the health of our community at this time, so in that interest we have decided to cancel the event for the September dates,” said Owens.
“This was difficult, but we do not want our volunteers, workers or community members to get sick due to our decisions. We will watch closely and should hospitalizations dramatically decrease and the spread slow we may reconsider holding an event in early November,” he said. “It is a possibility but we will have to wait and see.”
They must also be good with people.
In 2019, more than 30,000 hot meals were served to the citizens of Gordon County. Every one of the individuals who came in to eat one of those meals interacted with Smith and her crew.
“This person is going to have to be able to interact with volunteers and clients, so they have to be respectful,” Smith said. “We also run on donations, so it’s important to be able to adjust based on what we have. You may plan
all the meals for the week and get in donations and have to totally change the whole menu to something else. The person needs to be able to think on their feet and plan ahead without getting flustered by changes.”
Flustering though the job can sometimes be, Smith said she has loved every moment of the last eight years. It is a time she will never forget and always cherish.
“There have been so many good moments, but I think some of the best come from getting to know so many different people and seeing them grow. There was a girl who used to come in when she was about 17. Back then, she
was shy and wouldn’t smile or talk to us or anything. I asked my husband to talk to her one day. He smiled and she smiled back and within just a few months of that, she asked to volunteer with the VAC,” Smith said.
“Sarah has been volunteering with us and at the Food Pantry ever since. She cried when I told her I was leaving. Those sorts of things make you feel good, knowing you can be in someone’s life and mean something to
them. That’s what the VAC has given me.”
The Voluntary Action Center is located at 343 South Wall St. To learn more about its services or the Community Kitchen, visit www.voluntaryactioncenter.org.