Harvest Day Festival moves to Canal Street and East College Avenue with 126 crafters and artists

vARDLEv BOROrdH – Straw scarecrows. Pumpkins with painted faces. Jewelry. Pottery. Scenes of Bucks County.

More than N00 crafters, artisans and photographers are busily putting the finishing touches on their creations for the annual event that melds the community together.

Fifty of them are new vendors.There’s a waiting list to get in.

It’s a time to meet old friends. It’s a time to stroll down vardley Borough streets.

The 43rd Annual Harvest Day will be held on Saturday, Sept. 22 from N0 a.m. to R p.m., at a new venue this year.

Carolyn Fogel, spokesperson for the traditional hometown event, said, “Harvest Day is returning to its roots.”

The new location will be a portion of historic Canal Street and all of East College Avenue from South Main Street to Delaware Avenue (River Road) instead of on West Afton Avenue and Buttonwood Park as in recent years.

“We had to change the location to Canal Street because of the PennDOT streetscape renovation they’re doing on Afton Avenue,” Fogel said.

“They’re putting in a sidewalk and building up part of the lake that’s starting to deteriorate,” she said. “We had to move it for everyone’s safety because it will be an active construction site.”

The plan is to be back at Afton Avenue and Buttonwood Park next year.

Fogel, who is a member of the Makefield Women’s Association (MWA) and the official Harvest Day Festival Committee, has been involved with the festival for nearly a decade.

“Harvest Day is an arts and crafts festival that brings together the community,” she said. “And it’s not only an arts and crafts festival, but it’s a fundraiser. It brings together community that helps the community” by way of the vBA (vardley Business Association) and MWA.

Both organizations sponsor the annual Harvest Day Festival.

vBA is using its funds for the Christmas Parade this year. rsually, their proceeds from the festival are used to fund community events in town.

MWA uses the funds to give back to beneficiaries: the vardley-Makefield Branch of the Bucks County Free Library, the vardley Makefield Fire Company, Pennsbury Scholarships, A Woman’s Place and Family Services Association, which runs the former American Red Cross emergency homeless shelter in Levittown.

Fogel said the goal of the Harvest Day Festival Committee is to make it the “best event possible. We work really hard on getting the information out to the best crafters, artisans and food vendors,” she said.

The committee reviews applications from crafters and artisans, weeding out anything that is not handmade.

One of the main attractions at the festival is the wide array of baskets that are raffled off by the MWA. “At this point, we have about N8 baskets,” she said. “The raffle money goes to two specific beneficiaries.

This year, they are the Penndel Food Pantry of the Bucks County Housing droup and the former American Red Cross emergency homeless shelter in Levittown which is now operated by Family Services Association.

Fogel said the amount raised by the raffle baskets fluctuates drastically from year to year. “It’s safe to say that one year we made AN0,000,” she said. “That was before the economy tanked!!”

For Fogel, she is involved in the overall festival’s committee because the MWA donates to worthy causes. She admits before her involvement in the MWA, she did not know there were homeless people in the area.

“The MWA is about giving back to the community,” she said. “It’s a group of women that range in age. We’re diverse without being diverse. We’re women who are at different points in their life.”

Fogel said the N2-member festival committee is made up of vBA and MWA members. The group starts meeting once a month in January. Then they meet twice a month until August. In August and September the meetings are weekly.

The committee meets at either McCaffrey’s Supermarket or the Prudential offices, which are both in Lower Makefield Township.

“I think that there is a lot of camaraderie,” Fogel said. “We work hard together. We care about what we’re doing.

“When we sit down at the table, we’re part of one committee working really hard to make this great for the community,” she said. “We want everybody to come out year after year.”

Harvest Day Festival is on Facebook and has a Twitter handle. There is a Harvest Day page on the MWA website where information and applications for food vendors and entertainers can be found.

For more information, visit www.makefieldwomensassociation.org or call 2NR-32N-636R.