Vermont foliage fundraisers rake in bushels of green
People grab slices of fresh apple pie at the 49th Dummerston Apple Pie Festival in 2018. Brattleboro Reformer File Photo
By Kevin O’Connor
Parishioners at Vermont’s First Congregational Church of Newfane know that when local leaves flame orange, countless motorists backed up miles, bumper to bumper, from the center of town, burn red. But locals have good reason for clogging traffic along the town’s Route 30 artery every Columbus Day weekend: Their annual Heritage Festival on the crowded common rakes
in about $35,000, while the area volunteer fire department’s coin drop reaps spare change and small bills adding upward of $10,000 more. Vermont’s fall foliage is expected to attract 3.5 million visitors, who will spend nearly $500 million in six short weeks, state officials report. But while economists focus on the money made by stores, restaurants and hotels, some community nonprofits are raking in bushels
of green through a variety of fundraisers. People who visit the Dummerston Congregational Church’s 50th Apple Pie Festival on Oct. 13, for example, can sample one of the 1,500 confections that parishioners make and bake before leaving to cool in the pews of the nearly 175-year-old white-clapboard citadel. “It’s not an appointed or elected committee, but anyone
who’s interested,” church member Cindy Wilcox says. “We get lots and lots of people to slice the apples and roll the crusts.” Volunteers work from morning to night for two full weeks to turn 90 bushels of fruit, 950 pounds of flour and 400 pounds each of sugar and shortening into pies. Baking upward of three dozen pie tins at a time in on-site ovens, they annually prepare for visitors in cars and campers and UpCountryOnline.com | 69
