Harvest Festival

CVA Harvest Festival

by Julia Llewellyn

This past October Ms. Deveans held a Harvest Festival at Central Valley Academy. It took place on October 26th, with admission being $1 or a donation of a canned good. Ms. Deveans was inspired to take on this task because she and her daughter have been crafting for a long time. She wanted to bring people together and bring back craft fairs. It took eleven months for this idea to come to life. 

In order to advertise, Mrs. Deveans went to multiple craft fairs to contact vendors, as well as utilizing social media to spread the word. There were vendors in both gyms and the cafeteria. Over 50 vendors participated and there were over 80 donations for the basket raffle. With the event being such a success, she says she does plan on doing it again in the future. Next year's date has even already been set. Many things would stay the same, and all the vendors were pleased with how it went and even signed up for next year. 

Money raised went to CVA’s NJROTC, the junior class, and senior class. Fees of vendors and admission costs went to NJROTC, the junior class was in charge of the 50/50, and the senior class made money through running the bistro during the festival. 

Finally, I asked Ms. Deveans if she had any final thoughts. She replied, “I couldn’t have pulled it off without the cadets, volunteers, and boosters.” This truly was a community event. It all happened due to many people coming together to get things up and running, and ultimately, Ms. Devean’s idea came to fruition.