Fun Time at CandyTown Festival

Tue, 12/07/2021 - 9:06am — Diane Dyer

Friday night, December 3, 2021 will be a night to remember for many children. Not only did they get to see Santa (Ryan Emmick and his vintage truck), The Grinch (Jimmy Felty), Cindy Loo Who (Donna Annis), and Mrs. Claus (Amy Smith) and take pictures as well, they got to enjoy many events of the holiday.

Joyce Hammer’s CandyTown was the inspiration for the whole event. She would have CandyTown set up in her sunroom and invite people over and give them the tour with refreshments of Apple cider and gingerbread cookies. Community Education’s Christmas Camps went several years, no question was unimportant to Joyce and she would proudly show the children the many adventures set up in her displays to include the Christmas Story.

Our decorations this year included the Candy Jar, ferris wheel, the Nutcracker Theater, trees..trees..trees…ornaments on the tree, Her Land of Oz display as well. We offered hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies, lots of trees and Christmas lights.

We had ornament makers with Lynn Pendley and Joyce Creager manning that booth, they had great fun watching the children create their best ornament to take home and put on their tree.

Family Resource Center gave away free books, some with reading buddies. The looks on the Children’s faces when they found out that they got to choose their own book and buddy! Priceless. These ladies also almost single handedly decorated the large open area. It was beautiful with the lights and trees!!

Community Educations Line Dancers entertained the Festival goers with festive Christmas songs and dances! You could tell people wanted to join in, and some did!

We had a greenery sway booth manned by Colleen Phelps and Diana Ray, along with other volunteers. They offered help with making the swags, and the parent and child generally worked together to make them, they did this until they ran out of décor-I told Colleen later, they could have taken down some of the wall decorations and cut them up to make a few more.

Lilly Suggs did a face painting booth, they line was always long. She did a fantastic job and the kids were amazed with her work.

Wanda Nevins manned a T-shirt booth, and helped for 5 days decorating and encourage everyone.

There were 12 vendors from the Morgantown Farmers Market, they added so much to the event.

Michelle and Katie from the County Extension Service manned out hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies-I know that Katie served over 125 cups of hot chocolate and Michelle was comparable. They also brought information for the parents and children got their pictures taken with Wally Cat.

Butler County Band Members played Christmas music during the entire program, and they were fantastic! Hope they volunteer again.

We had other high school volunteers: Parker Smith gave children tickets at the door for door prizes, Abbie and Gracie Sublett helped sell raffle tickets for the tree that we gave a way.

The recipient of the tree was Carolyn Engler.