NORTH VERNON — Another annual activity in Jennings County has been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The St. Mary’s Community Festival, scheduled for the weekend after Labor Day, will not be take place in 2020.
The festival has taken place each September for nearly half a century. It began as a small gathering for members of St Mary’s Parish, but in recent decades it has grown into a large social event open to the entire community.
Hundreds of volunteers from St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s, and St. Anne’s Catholic churches work year-round to prepare for the festival.
The festival has expanded to include carnival amusement rides, live bands, dancing, a beer garden, and athletic competitions. Bake sales and chicken and fish dinners are also a staple of the event.
While the festival has operated as a fundraiser for the Catholic community, it’s about more than money.
“I like to think the festival brings the whole community together every year. Families from all around come to the festival every year,” said festival chairperson Abbey Bales. They play and have a good time together. They eat, they listen to music dance and just have fun.
“Generations of families have worked to build the festival. My parents always worked on it and now I do. I can’t count the number of meetings I attended to try to find a way to save this year’s festival in spite of COVID-19, but there is just too much risk and too much insecurity.”
Bales explained that many of the festival’s traditional events just couldn’t safely adapt to COVID-19 restrictions. The amusement rides company and other vendors had cancelled their participation in the festival, she said.
The changing number of positive COVID-19 cases could’ve also forced a last-minute cancellation of the festival, costing thousands of dollars in prepaid deposits and expenses.
“I am very disappointed, but I think we all are,” St. Mary’s Rev. Jerry Byrd said. “Not just because of what the festival means to the parish but because the festival has come to mean a way to get to know and meet with the whole community. I believe the festival has become something the community has enjoyed.”
