This story originally appeared in the May 30-June 5, 2024 edition of the Centre County Gazette.
LEMONT — The Lemont Strawberry Festival will return for its 42nd year from 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, at the Lemont Village Green. The Lemont Village Association, established to preserve and promote the history of Lemont, sponsors multiple events, like the Strawberry Festival, throughout the year to help strengthen community ties and encourage visitors to explore Lemont.
“The Strawberry Festival — this is our 42nd one — has been going on for a long time,” explained Sue Smith, chair of the board for the Lemont Village Association. “In the beginning, we had it at the Presbyterian Church in Lemont before it moved to the Village Green. It was very small at the time. It always had music and of course, strawberries. It had strawberries, ice cream and cake, and we did all of the preparation of the strawberries in somebody’s house.”
However, the event is no longer the small community event it started as. Now, it is a yearly tradition that marks the beginning of the summer months and brings in hundreds of locals. With live music, food and other festivities, it has grown beyond what Smith could have imagined when she first became involved.
“It has really grown and it’s great to see. Now, we have to get 30 flats — about eight times 30 is how many quarts of strawberries that is,” Smith said. “Together we all prepare them Friday night.”
The strawberries, Smith explained, come from a farm in Belleville that picks the berries fresh that morning — the day before the festival — to ensure that the freshest of berries are used.
“It’s really amazing. We all come together. People sit around picnic tables and hull and chop them,” Smith shared, explaining how afterward the volunteers mix the berries with a small amount of sugar for extra sweetness and to bring out the juice of the berries.
“We prepare the strawberries the day before and then, in the morning on Saturday, people bring cakes that they volunteered to make,” Smith said, adding that this year they hope for at least 40 cakes from volunteers. “Usually we have 600 to 700 people who come and enjoy the berries, stay for the music and just stay to be friendly and talk with each other.”
And for Smith, it is the opportunity for everyone, Lemont residents and other Centre County locals, to come together which makes the annual Strawberry Festival so special.
“It’s very important to me that Lemont be a really caring community. This is a chance for people to sit and really talk to each other,” Smith said. “We see each other out and about, at the post office, in the neighborhood, regularly. But we often just see each other; we don’t take the time to talk, to connect.”
This year, in addition to the prepared strawberries and homemade cakes, there will be Meyer Dairy ice cream and lemonade. The Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania, which is located in Lemont, will have art activities for attendees to enjoy during the festival. The Bellefonte Historical Railroad will offer “speeder” rides throughout the afternoon, and tours of the 1885 grain elevator and coal sheds will also be available for those interested in learning more about the history of Lemont. Music by Mary Madigan and friends will be performed from 3 to 5 p.m. and the Extra Miles will perform from 5 to 7 p.m.
The cost of the festival is $8 for those 13 and older and $4 for children from 5 to 12 years of age.
