Congregation Agudat Achim hosted its 42nd Annual Carrot Festival on Sunday, making some changes to its usual format in light of the pandemic.
"We like to say, our question was never 'if' there was going to be a Carrot Festival this year, it was 'how' there was going to be," said Carrot Festival chairperson Hillary Fink. "And it took a lot of months of figuring it out, but we feel excited about the model that we came up with to make it work this year."
So Fink and other organizers went with a drive-thru format for this year's festival, offering up its famous carrot cake, along with fresh produce from Schoharie's Carrot Barn.
Jeff Handelman is a fourth-generation member of the congregation, who took part in the first festival 42 years ago.
"This is actually a little reminiscent because over the years this has grown into a huge community festival," Handelman said. "The whole thing fit back here --it wasn't on the front lawn-- it was all in the parking lot."
While live music, food and dozens of vendors on site couldn't happen this year, organizers decided to make this festival a multi-day event. Vendors were able to set up online and they decided to make the festival more service-oriented.
On Sunday, they collected donations to stuff a CDTA bus which will benefit four local organizations and throughout the upcoming week, they'll participate in service projects with the United Way.
"We're conscious of the social need that there is in the broader community to respond with love and compassion and acts of love and kindness to whole community," said Rabbi Rafi Spitzer.
Spitzer said this decision to do multiple service projects is part of deeply-held religious beliefs in the Jewish faith.
"Focusing on 'maasim tovim,' which are good deeds and on the 'mitzvah,' the sacred obligation of giving back to the community," Spitzer said.
He said focusing on those principles is so important right now.
"The Carrot Festival is truly a celebration and it's a celebration of the end of summer, a celebration of the harvest, we always have it near our high holy days in the Jewish tradition," Spitzer said. "Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, which is the harvest festival, and this year we're able to harness that idea of celebration in a way that really, is very different than it has been in the past, but feels so needed after so many months."
You can find additional information about volunteer opportunities for this week's service projects, as well as how you can support the virtual vendors on their website.
September 14, 2020 at 02:58AM
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42nd Annual Carrot Fest Held With Changes Due to COVID-19 - Spectrum News
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