Community fair gives new record
TELFORD >> The amount contributed to local non-profit organizations from the Penn Valley Church Community Fair keeps growing.
“This year was our biggest year as far as funds raised,” said Pastor of Shepherding Andrew Saunders, campus team coordinator for the church’s Telford campus.
This was the sixth year for the fair, which ran June 12 to 16 at the church on
Third Street in Telford.
During the previous five years, the fair raised a combined $105,800 for Keystone Opportunity Center, Telford Volunteer Fire Co. and Indian Valley Public Library.
“Our desire is to seek the welfare of our community,” Saunders said.
“We really believe that God loves our community so therefore we should love our community,” he said. “We want to be able to let the community know that we care and really appreciate what the library offers our community as far as literacy.”
He said it’s “amazing” what the volunteer fire company does to help keep the community safe.
“Keystone Opportunity Center, what they do for the poor and needy in our community is something that we really believe in,” Saunders said, “and so we want to help support them as well.”
This year, a fourth organization, North Care Women’s Clinic, was added to the list of beneficiaries from the fair.
This year’s fair gave a total of $27,500 to the four organizations, with $2,500 going to Indian Valley Public Library, $6,000 to Telford Volunteer Fire Company, and $9,500 each to North Care Women’s Clinic and Keystone Opportunity Center.
That brings the total contributed over the six years to $133,300, with $24,000 having gone to Indian Valley Public Library, $28,900 to Telford Volunteer Fire Company, $70,900 to Keystone Opportunity Center and $9,500 to North Care Women’s Clinic.
This was the first year that attendance counts were taken at the fair, Saunders said.
“We had over 10,000 people come through over the course of the week,” he said.
Good weather helped with the attendance, he said.
“We did not have one rain-out,” he said.
“Usually every year we have at least one day that’ s rain,” he said, “but this year all five days were good, dry weather, so that really kept people coming out as well.”
The fair includes carnival rides, food tents, a chili cook-off, the Indian Valley Voice-Off and other musical entertainment and ends with Saturday night fireworks. This year, for the first time, there was also a car show. Another new feature this year was an area set aside Friday night and Saturday afternoon for local non-profit organizations to display information and talk to attendees about their organization.
Also new this year was that children from Franconia, E. M. Crouthamel and West Broad Street elementary schools who receive free lunch at school were offered a night of unlimited free rides at the fair along with a free meal that night from the fair’s food tent, Saunders said. There were 120 children from the schools who came to the fair through that, he said.
“That was a neat addition,” he said.