ASHFIELD — Children ran in relays while the emcee, dressed in colorful striped pajamas, led the Pumpkin Games with jokes and encouragement over the weekend at the first Ashfield Fall Festival to be held since 2019.
While thousands from across the state and beyond attended the festival on the town common to see the changing fall colors and eat their slice of apple pie, residents of Ashfield appreciate the festival as their biggest fundraiser of the year.
Festival organizers only allow people and organizations with connections to Ashfield to sell food. This generates thousands of dollars in profits for local organizations, to be used all year long for any programming and services those organizations provide.
When the Ashfield Fall Festival first began 51 years ago, it was designed to raise money for a scholarship fund for Ashfield students looking to go to college, according to festival Chair Sandy Lilly. Supporting the scholarship fund remains a central goal today, with money from parking and a portion of proceeds from each vendor going toward the cause. Any Ashfield resident can apply for a scholarship, regardless of whether they are teens heading to college straight from high school or older folks hoping to get a bachelor’s degree.
While this scholarship fund is the standout cause, dozens of other organizations attend the Ashfield Fall Festival to work for their yearly budgets.
Ashfield’s Boy Scout Troop 18 sold pumpkin doughnuts and doughnut holes, apple cider and coffee in their booth next to the First Congregational Church.
“This festival means money,” troop member Henry Herland said while scooping shortening into the fryer they had set up for the day.
With the festival not having been held in 2020 or 2021 due to the pandemic, he remarked on the financial impact losing its primary fundraiser of the year had on the troop.
In 2020, as was the case with events around the world, festival organizers decided not to hold the annual event due to COVID-19. In 2021, as festivals began to come back into full swing, the Ashfield Fall Festival was canceled again after the Board of Health decided the risk was still too high.
Similar to the Boy Scouts, representatives of the former South Ashfield Library were out all weekend long fundraising. For their booth, inside Town Hall, they sold slices of pie and cheddar cheese cut from a large wheel.
The Thursday before the festival, they host a “Pie Bee.” Residents of South Ashfield gather in the kitchen at the First Congregational Church and work for two hours rolling, filling and shaping as many pies as they can. The scene is mayhem, recounted South Ashfield resident Ann Cullen, with children acting as runners, delivering ingredients and moving crusts along to the next station. Participants in the Pie Bee then take as many raw pies as they can manage and bake them in their homes to sell over the weekend.
The former South Ashfield Library is used as a meeting space today. Cullen explained this is the only fundraiser for the building each year, and it pays for all the maintenance and utility bills.
Eli Willey was also out fundraising. His organization: the Hilltown Snowmobile Club. Selling grinders at the festival, this organization uses the money raised to maintain the snowmobile trails in Ashfield and Plainfield.
“Without this fundraiser at the festival,” Willey said, “we would have to get really creative to keep this organization going.”
Bella Levavi can be reached at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.