Revelers flock to Hinesburg Fall Festival
Hinesburg Fall Fest attendees enjoy old-fashioned apple press. Photo by Olivia Wilson
Olivia Wilson reported this story on assignment from The Citizen. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
The sun peeked through the clouds onto the grassy field by the Hinesburg Town Hall Saturday as Maggie Gordon introduced guests to the new town common.
“As many people know,” Gordon said, “Hinesburg has no public gathering space, and this is going to be it.”
Gordon was welcoming folks to this year’s Hinesburg Fall Festival last week, which she helped organize. The festival has been going on for the past 17 years on and off in various locations, but with construction of a park on the space about to get underway, the event will soon have a permanent home.
Hinesburg locals flooded the gathering space with kids and dogs, taking advantage of activities like old-timey apple pressing, a puppet show and local food offerings.
Linda Segovia Wise and Amanda Segovia Bradley watched their kids in the corn pit laughing along at the hilarity of dry corn being stuffed down their shirts. “It makes me emotional how special Vermont is and how special this community is,” said Bradley.
Asked why she was attending the event, her eyes welled. “In a simple way, it doesn’t matter if you’re on a budget or not on one, you can come and enjoy the beautiful weather and the people,” she said.
Out-of-towners seemed to sense the feeling of the day, too.
Steve Fox, visiting from Oregon, said he can sense that feeling of hometown coziness while waiting for food outside the Las Hermosas food truck. Pat Kelleher traveled from Cork, Ireland, to play with the Hinesburg Song Farmers, the local chapter of a movement to start jam sessions in communities around the world.
He and Hinesburg musician Rik Palieri, a founding member of the town’s Song Farmers group, have been in contact for years, but this was the first time they were able to play together in person, and what a better venue than the original location of the Front Porch Music Association, which started Song Farmers.
Musical performances kicked off with a student band, the Hinesburg Community School GreenHawks, led by music teacher Niel Maurer. Next was a band out of University of Vermont, Flint and Steale, serenading the audience with variations of covers and original folk songs.
“Good things are worth waiting for,” said Palieri as he introduced the final musical act of the day: himself, Kelleher and the Song Farmers. Dozens of locals, including Bruce Jameson, gathered, as they do the first Thursday of every month at the Carpenter-Carse Library, to participate in the joy of making music.
The final event of the day was the annual Stone Soup dinner. All day a curious pot over a little fire was getting fuller and fuller. Andrea Morgante, and member of the Hinesburg Land Trust, was gathering food from local farms and gardens for a European folktale–inspired soup.
The magic ingredient? A stone Morgante carries from year to year in a cookie jar for safe-keeping. The Hinesburg Land Trust uses this fun, old story to remind people how connected they are — and to help keep them in good spirits before the long winter settles in.
