Happy Friday!
I’m still trying to get over the Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival. It was such a great event again this year. But it really wears me down. So much planning goes into every little detail!
I want to make a big SHOUT OUT to all of the volunteers. There is no way that this festival could be run as efficiently and as cost effectively as it is without the volunteers. Everywhere you look, orange shirts. And I ran out of shirts this year so we had a few people incognito!
Terry and I tried to put a list together of all of the volunteers because we have a dinner every year to celebrate their efforts. Our list went to well over 70 people! Pretty good for a small community with only 110 members in the Homosassa Civic Club that sponsors the event.
Now….let me tell you about the festival. I do the photography (and the t-shirts, website, and social media). So on Saturday morning I was snapping photos for the judging. This guy got best of show. I think he got it last year, too.
The Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival is run by the Homosassa Civic Club and it is always the second weekend in November. All proceeds go back to the community–scholarships, youth groups, veterans, and more. Terry and I started volunteering for the festival in 2015. He became chairperson in 2016. We’ve come a long way since then!
There were a lot of complaints about the quality of the vendors going down back in 2015 when we first started volunteering. Also the food was all deep fried. It was a nightmare for the arts and crafts vendors to set up and tear down. The arts and crafts committee now juries all the entries. While there is still deep fried food, there are also healthy alternatives. Now there are volunteers that take the vendors to their spot when they first arrive and parking people to direct traffic for the tear down.
We first started having musical entertainment in 2015 with two bands each day. This year we have a professional musician who volunteered to run the entertainment. It was non-stop music from 10 am to closing both days.
And we allowed pets in this year!
We’ve got the volunteer dinner scheduled and we are getting ready for next year!