BELLEFONTE — This year’s Bellefonte Arts and Crafts Fair has a full slate of activities for kids of all ages.
Scheduled for Friday, Aug. 12, and Saturday, Aug. 13, at Talleyrand Park, the fair’s fun, festive atmosphere of lively music, tasty food and great art can be enjoyed by children both days. Additionally, kids will be able to choose from different free activities going on throughout the two-day festival.
Arts and crafts designed specifically for children will let them express themselves creatively. The projects will engage children in creating their own unique pieces of artwork, including a patriotic center, silly faces banks and keepsake boxes, fans, magic noodle collages, marble painting, tambourines and wet chalk art.
No festival is complete without face painting, and this will be available in the Mock Creations booth.
For young people interested in learning more about how to enjoy the great outdoors, there will be a youth kayaking experience, in which kids between the ages of 10 and 14 can participate in kayaking in Spring Creek. This is offered by the Mach One Kayak Team.
Bellefonte Emergency Medical Services will be on hand, displaying equipment, providing demonstrations and answering questions about their roles as emergency responders.
On Saturday, Centre Wildlife will be offering a program, “Take a Walk on the Wild Side,” which will feature live mammals, birds and reptiles, and kids can learn how to respond to a wild animal in need of help.
For young scientists, the fair will feature Dominion Science Center, an organization that is small but growing. It is dedicated to establishing a hands-on science center. Ellen McHenry, founder, curator and exhibit builder at the center, said that Dominion currently offers a collection of traveling exhibits at various venues during the summer, including the Bellefonte Arts and Crafts Fair.
McHenry designs and builds all of the exhibits, and said that they are not just science — they feature art, too, which makes the museum a perfect fit for arts festivals. She said that as Dominion grows, she hopes to be able to offer more opportunities during the summer, such as some summer camps or special events.
“In the past, we’ve had lots of different exhibits, including a small petting zoo, an outdoor mini golf with metal dinosaurs and a landscaped water fountain. Every year we try to bring some new and different things,” McHenry said.
“We hear lots of appreciative and enthusiastic comments from festivalgoers. They are very disappointed to learn that we are not located anywhere that they can visit other times in the year.”
A new exhibit theme is oceans, with a crochet coral reef, reef fishing, several beach-combing displays, a display about creatures of the deep sea and table-top mini-golf holes with an ocean theme.
Other features of Dominion’s exhibits are Puzzle Island, the Ex-pouriment Factory for the toddler set and a microscope station for kids to experiment with “bionic vision.”
Aside from the activities provided for children visiting the festival, there is a unique opportunity for budding young artists who are eager to have their work on display. Young people between the ages of 8 and 17 who design and make their own arts and crafts have the chance to display and sell their artwork from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at booths set up on the Water Street side of the park.
For more information, visit www.bellefontefair.org.
