A tent provides shade for festival-goers enjoying a meal from the many food booths at the 43rd annual Yadkin Valley Harvest Festival.
Kitsey Burns Harrison | The Yadkin Ripple
Due to the pandemic, this year’s Yadkin Valley Harvest Festival has been cancelled. The event was scheduled for Sept. 19.
“The Yadkin Arts Council has made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Yadkin Valley Harvest Festival as a result of COVID-19. Never in the long history of the festival has this happened. We will look forward to 2021 and the next Harvest Festival.”
The festival, which first began in 1976, had to be rescheduled in 2018 due to threat of a hurricane that was expected to bring heavy rains to the area.
This year would have marked the 44th annual Harvest Festival.
“It’s been a highlight of the fall season around Yadkinville since 1976,” organizers said. “Traditionally the third Saturday in September, the Yadkin Valley Harvest Festival is the granddaddy of festivals in the Yadkin Valley.”
The festival is a celebration of all that is good in Yadkin County. Over the years, the festival has grown and evolved, with something for everyone who attends. An array of vendors featuring jewelry, clothing, hand-crafted items and more will line the streets. Sumptuous food offerings will include BBQ, kettle corn and much more.
Yadkin Arts Council Executive Director Sarah Smith said they were disappointed to have to cancel the Harvest Festival but they are continuing to come up with virtual ways to keep people connected to the arts.
“When we shut down in March it was crazy that we all thought it would just be for two weeks and that we would be back in action in no time,” she said. “Now it is five months later and things are still on hold for the most part. With the public gathering limitations still set at 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors, it has paused our programming in the Willingham Theater this summer, and now the Harvest Festival has been cancelled as well. We have also had to cancel art classes, gallery receptions, and our in-person summer camps. The uncertainty of when we’ll be able to host events again, at the capacity needed for success, has been a challenge that we have been facing for months now.”
“On the bright side, we have been able to provide some art opportunities, just in a different format than usual. When we had to cancel the in-person art camp we converted it to a virtual camp instead. We built art kits for the students to use at home and they logged into Zoom once a week for five weeks for a digital class with Mrs. Andrea Raines. By offering this as a virtual opportunity we actually were able to sign up more students than if we had done it in person, and we even had students in other states including New Jersey! The classes and instruction were also recorded and stored online for access later if the student was unable to attend the ‘live’ class.”
The closure has also allowed time for needed maintenance on the facility, Smith said.
“Please know that we are hanging in there and doing everything that we can to keep the Yadkin Arts Council’s mission of transforming lives through the arts viable and strong until we are able to return to business as usual,” Smith added.
Kitsey Burns Harrison may be reached at 336-679-2341 or on Twitter and Instagram @RippleReporterK.