Kutztown Folk Festival carries on tradition
69th annual event features folklife demos, artisan crafts, Pa Dutch food, live entertainment
The 69th Annual Kutztown Folk Festival, held June 30 through July 8, features folklife demonstrations, artisan crafts and antiques, PA German food and drink, live entertainment, and family fun for all ages. The festival attracts an estimated 130,000 people each year.
“I think being here for 69 years, the biggest things is the festival being so unique. We still haven’t lost sight that it’s a celebration of the local Pennsylvania Dutch culture,” festival director Steve Sharadin said on opening day. “We have 200 great craftsmen, all the Pennsylvania Dutch food, the quilts, the folklife and again, it’s just such a unique festival and I think that’s a key part of (what brings people back every year).”
Sharadin said a big part of the festival is that local non-profits, service organizations and churches participate every year, providing much of the festival food and presentations.
“You’ll see everything from blacksmithing to antique tractors and presentations in our one-room school house and traditional folk dancing. Those are things you don’t see at many other events,” said Sharadin.
Highlights traditionally include the Lester Miller family square dancing, sheep sheering, feature bands performing live on the Main Stage each day including this year a 19-piece Shippensburg brass band, Celtic Martin Family, Country Auction, seminars, the Liar’s Contest, and many other festival favorites.
“We’ve got a few great new features this year,” said Sharadin. “We’ve got the Harvest Home tradition at the Union Church. It’s a celebration that is traditionally held in late summer, early fall where the whole church gets decked out with all of the year’s harvest; fruit, vegetables, canned goods, baked goods. The church looks really beautiful and amazing. Part of the tradition is after the service all of those foods would get donated to the local community.”
In conjunction with the Harvest Home, a food drive is collecting food donations to donated to local food banks at Friend Inc. and Manna at Grace Church in Kutztown.
Also new for this year’s festival is a garden-scale, 30’x20’ model train display and railroad memorabilia presented by the Allentown & Auburn Railroad which operates four miles of preserved tracks previously associated with the Allentown Railroad and offers seasonal excursions at their train station in Kutztown.
“It has some really neat features that people will recognize from Kutztown,” said Sharadin.
Also, the National Museum of Industrial History from Bethlehem brought a 100-year-old printing press to the festival.
“It’s active, it’s actually making pieces,” said Sharadin. “You get to see this press in operation and it’s really neat.”
Frank Sattler, museum proprietor, pressed souvenir coasters with the museum logo and the festival logo. Sattler was doing demonstrations on old letter presses, one from 1874 and the other from 1922.
“A chance to see what the past was like before computers, how everything was printed. Printing spread the word from church bulletins to newspapers,” said Sattler.
Jared Seyler from Fleetwood stirred apple butter in a large pot over an open fire at the Esser family of Kutztown’s food stand during the opening day of the festival. The stand includes apple butter, sauerkraut, caramel apples and mint tea.
“I like the variety of everything here at the festival and the Pennsylvania Dutch roots I think is neat, especially growing up locally,” said Seyler.
Kutztown Optimist Club President Don Hickman sold food at the club stand.
“I enjoy meeting the people and hearing a lot of the talk about the Pennsylvania Dutch culture, clothes and stuff,” said Hickman.
Kutztown Lions Club, known for their famous Dutch Fries, has been operating their stand at the festival since the early 1940s, originally started to fund the ambulance service at that time.
Handing over a heaping bowl of Dutch Fries, Karen Wuchter of the Lions Club said her favorite part of the festival is “the Dutch Fries, of course!”
“I just love being with the people. This is volunteer for me. We’re a 100 percent charity stand and you get to see a lot of the same people over and over again. It’s a great festival.”
For more information about the Kutztown Folk Festival and for a schedule of events, visit www. kutztownfestival.com.