By Taylor Boyd
The 18th annual Strawberry Festival was a massive success, according to Town Manager Terry Tilley, who estimated about 2,000 attended the event.
“It’s actually more of a bigger crowd than I was actually expecting, and there’s more venders than I was expecting, too. It’s been good festival and a beautiful day,” Tilley said.
The Town of Stuart holds the festival annually, but like many events, last year’s festival was cancelled due to the pandemic.
“People have been kind of cooped up for so long, I think they wanted to get out. It’s been really good. I really enjoy it when it’s like this. People seem to be enjoying themselves,” Tilley said, and added that he hopes the upcoming Apple Dumpling festival in October will have a similar atmosphere and turnout.
On Saturday, first time festival attendee Tiffany Stowe, of Blairs, also felt like the fest was a success.
Noting that she and her husband are new to the area and have been stuck in the house for so long, “it’s nice to get out and just see since it’s just so beautiful here,” Stowe said.
The festival, she added, was “very well put together, and it’s in a beautiful location. You’ve got the mountains right in the background, so no matter where you are you can just turn, and you have a beautiful landscape right behind you.”
Sarah Harding, of Martinsville, said she missed the festival last year.
Harding, who has often attended the event in recent years, said she especially enjoyed the vendors. “There seems to be a lot more vendors this year. There’s a lot more different things going on, a lot more shops open. It’s pretty nice,” she said.
Harding said that after last year’s hiatus, she hopes the festival continues to be an annual event.
“It’s nice to walk around and look at stuff you haven’t seen before,” she said.
Carol Taylor, a regular festival goer, also said she missed the Strawberry Festival last year.
“I enjoy them so much, I’ve seen people I haven’t seen in a long time, and it’s just really good to get out again and see people,” she said.
Besides enjoying the food vendors, Taylor said she liked the variety of vendors and the strawberries.
“I’m just glad to see all of these little kids here because it makes you think there’s hope for our county,” she added.
Diane Hunt also said she liked that she got to see a lot of people that she knows while looking at the different vendors.
“It’s a good variety, there’s something to suit everybody’s taste. And the music has been really good, I’ve enjoyed that,” she said. “It’s been quite busy so it must have gone over well A lot of hard work goes into it and it looks like they look like they know what they’re doing because it’s so well coordinated.”
Like many attendees, Hunt said she missed the event last year.
“It just seemed like part of springtime was missing with no Strawberry Festival,” she said.
