Tons of fun at fall family festival
Oct 8, 2022
Five-year-old Eilidh Gunn rides a pony during the second annual Family Fall Festival outside St. Peter’s Episcopal on Saturday. Photos by: Christopher Shea
Three-year-old Dominic was all smiles to be near the smiling jack-o-lanterns.
A donkey grazes on the grass without a care in the world.
One-year-old Ruby Ban and father Matt pet the donkey.
Baaaaaaaaaaa.
Maddie Pankowski, 7, gets her face painted.
The front lawn of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church became a small grazing patch Saturday afternoon as part of a family festival full of fun, fauna, and food.
The festival, now in its second year, was organized by the Dartmouth Mom’s Group @ St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, a group which now boasts more than 600 members on Facebook.
Along with friendly farm animals such as sheep, goats, a donkey, and horse, the festival included a bouncy house, face painting and plenty of fall decorations to take photos with.
Still, meeting and petting the animals appeared to be the most popular activity at the festival.
Five-year-old Eilidh Gunn said her favorite part was easily getting to ride a pony on the front lawn. She said she especially liked when it would “go up and down.”
Another form of entertainment was Ollie the Clown, who created animal balloons and did a magic show where he juggled and smashed a banana with a hammer.
The clown especially wowed his audience when doing an illusion involving placing a needle inside a balloon that did not pop (at least until after the trick was complete). That said, there were a few screams following the pop.
The festival also included several tables where vendors young and old sold their wares. Among them was seven-year-old Desmond Gregory, who sold his surplus Pokemon cards.
To make it more seasonal, he sold packs with Gengar, a ghost-type Pokemon, on the wrappers (along with a glow in the dark Gengar keychain). Pikachu was also represented on the table.
Packs were sold for $3.
“That’s not like a lot of money,” one young shopper said before purchasing a pack.
Desmond said he has been collecting the cards for about two years. He first got into collecting when he watched the Pokemon anime on Netflix.
This was not his first time selling cards in the village.His mother Maria noted that he had a popular booth set up during the Padanaram Summer Festival this past July.
“And he used all that money to buy more packs,” she said with a laugh.
Desmond added that he plans to use money from Saturday’s festival for the same thing.
