LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – In a record-breaking re-entry Saturday (June 10, 2023) for its previously COVID-shuttered annual Strawberry Festival, the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society event was sold out. Of everything.
All its strawberries, eaten. All but less than a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream, vanished. Hot dogs (above), hamburgers, and anything else that looked like a potential lunch, consumed.
A large team of historical society volunteers ended the day smiling, but tired. “It seemed like people were just hungry to get back to this,” volunteer Linda Linsenbigler suggested, intending no pun. “They were ready and waiting for us.”
If traffic flowing into the society’s Sanatoga Chapel property on East High Street was any indication, visitors also were anxious to arrive early. The festival opened at 11 a.m., and within a half-hour its grounds were already filled with cars. Local fire police teams used orange warning cones to funnel passing vehicles beyond the site to other parking spaces on nearby side streets.
The weather was pleasant but the sun was bright, and visitors quickly sought shelter at tables beneath awnings erected for the purpose. They talked and laughed with friends, family members, and adjacent neighbors as they waited for an assortment of strawberry and ice cream treats to arrive. Many patronized the tent of a new sponsor, Hares Hill Brewing of Pottstown, to sample its hand-crafted beers.
Beyond the ice cream, kids found additional fun at a variety of activities and games set up behind the chapel. Possibly of greatest interest for them, though, was the vintage but well-kept McCormick farm tractor on which they could sit and pretend to drive away. A line of anxiously waiting kids occasionally formed for it.
The Strawberry Festival represented “a great comeback,” historical society event Chair Beth Scherer said, who praised its team of volunteers for “doing a fantastic job bringing back not only a great fundraiser, but a really nice community event!” She thanked “this awesome group,” and others in the society’s membership that made the event possible, for “preserving our history.”
All photos by Travels With The Post
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