Isn’t it
exciting that the Arroyo Grande Valley Harvest Festival is in its 71st year. The theme this year is "Planting the Seeds of
Our Future". The Harvest Festival is our
primary local annual community event. It is a
time for children, families and friends to join together for fun and celebration –  celebration of community and its history. One of the things that makes Arroyo Grande so
special is its strong sense of community and Harvest Festival plays a big part in building
and maintaining that environment.
The first Harvest Festival was organized by the Woman’s Club in 1937. It was a two-day celebration held in an elementary
school building. Food, booths and
entertainment were held in the classrooms and a children’s pet parade took place on
the Saturday of the Festival. The Woman’s
Club ran the Festival until 1946 when they asked for community supporters to take over. The Festival continued to grow and became the
primary annual event in the entire Valley. Many
folks talk about how they used to dress up the entire week of the festival and work on
their floats for the parade all year.
Some of the goals of the Arroyo Grande
Harvest Festival Committee have been for the festival to grow each year to return it to
its former prominence and to return more of the focus of the Festival to celebrating
agriculture and the area’s history. A number of things have been added this year to help
accomplish that. 
Located in the center of the Village will be what is being called an "ag"
pavilion, which will include booths and displays on some of the activities of local
farmers. The South County
Historical Society has also organized a number of people to be dressed in
turn-of-the-century costumes and be involved in historical activities around the Society
museums. When you walk through this area, it
will be like stepping back in time. The
Society has also launched a costume contest, so everyone is encouraged to show up in
western, harvest or turn-of-the century costumes. Businesses
and employees are encouraged to decorate and dress up the full week of the Festival.
The Festival is bringing back a hoosgow this
year, so make sure you purchase a Harvest Festival button or dress in costume – those
will be the only ways to keep you out of jail. The
Harvest Festival Sheriff and her deputies will be making the arrests. Rumor has it that
some wild gunfights could even break out – so watch out! 
By popular demand the Festival’s Scarecrow Contest has been added to
the activities once again. Get your entries
in. Creators are encouraged to be as creative
as possible. The scarecrows will be displayed
at the Festival and will help to set the scene for the area.
We've added some new events this year. Not only will we have our
popular bread baking contest, but we've added a new category, Harvest Gone Wild.
Also added this year you can enter your canned jams, jellies and preserves, and we'll have
a pie exhibition. We've also brought back the fruit and vegetable growing contest as
well as the cut flower contest.
Last year we brought back the Cow Chip Throwing Contest, Cow Milking and a
few other old time favorites. This year we've added a skillet toss, and an ice cream
toss, so start practicing now!
Another goal of the Festival this year was to increase the activities for kids,
from the young children to the older teens. Fees
were waived for non-profit organizations providing game booths to encourage more games
that kids love to play. For the young
children, there will be two bounce houses, pony rides, petting zoo, and a train ride. A horse drawn wagon will travel right through the
Village on E. Branch Street to pick up riders for an old fashioned hay ride around the
area.  For the teens, the YMCA will be providing “teen
extreme” games, a climbing wall, and a skateboard contest. For the real young ones, the diaper derby always
provides some exciting competition. The
Festival Committee has also worked closely with the Lucia Mar Unified School District to
increase involvement of the schools. With
school starting earlier this year, it enabled a number of school clubs and organizations
to get involved in sponsoring booths and entering the parade.
The parade will be the best ever. There
will be a wide variety of entries, animals, clowns, marching bands and plenty of
surprises.
Entertainment will be terrific, with a wide variety of groups performing –
from Barbershop Quartet, to bagpipe, to Country western, to a teen rock group. There will be two venues – the Short Street
Gazebo and at the new Rotary Bandstand at the Nelson Greenspace. 
Of course, there will be lots of contests, chili, salsa, bread baking, vegetable
decorating, biggest pumpkin, pie eating, nail driving and even cow chip throwing. The Optimists will be holding its Soap Box Derby
again this year, but is has grown to over 20 entries.
A number of new surprises are planned for this exciting event.
And, don’t miss the food. Rotary’s
legendary fish fry will kick off the event on Friday at 4:00 p.m. The Lion’s Club will be serving their famous
tri-tip on both days, enjoy the parade and lots more . . .
What really makes the Arroyo Grande Valley
Harvest Festival so special  is
that it is organized entirely by volunteers. The
organizing committee has grown significantly, is extremely enthusiastic, and is composed
almost entirely of representatives of service clubs and civic organizations. Just about every community organization is now
involved with the Festival. Despite all the
activities, the primary goal is simply to bring together families and friends to enjoy
each other’s company and create great memories – especially for our children.
Don’t miss out –
be a part of it!
~ 2008 Harvest Festival
Committee
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