43rd annual Strawberries N’ Arts Festival offers a day of entertainment for all
The famous strawberry shortcake is a popular food item during the festival.
June 16, 2018
On Saturday, June 16th, the 43rd annual Strawberries N’ Arts Festival took place on the Westford Common. The festival, which is sponsored by the First Parish Church United of Westford (often referred to as the FPCU), hosts over 90 vendors who sell everything from jewelry to wall decor and of course, food.
The festival, which took place from 10 AM to 4 PM, attracted hundreds of attendees each hour, completely filling the Common as well as all the parking in the town center. Due to the scarcity of parking, many attendees walked from their own homes.
Lines at the fair were extremely long, the most popular by far being the line for the fresh strawberry shortcake made by the Church. The shortcake, which is a much-anticipated part of the festival, is quite the production. According to a Facebook post by the FPCU, they prepared over 1000 shortcake servings using 1200 shortcake biscuits and 350 gallons of fresh strawberries.
Along with the strawberry shortcake, there was a wide selection of sweet foods to satisfy anyone’s sweet tooth at Sweetest Memories, Inc.’s stand.
Co-owner Angela Sarantakis was happy to be a vendor at the event, saying “The weather’s been great. [We have really enjoyed] the people, the atmosphere, it’s really nice. Everyone’s quite friendly.”
The festival had various forms of art on display, including everything from custom stuffed bears and cornhole boards, to jewelry, and to paintings and photography prints.
Artist Caroline Sainis, owner of Caroline Saints Folk Art was a first-time craftswoman at the fair. She was attracted to the idea and vibe of the festival and thought it a great place to display and sell her unique folk art, which is painted over wooden panels.
“I was searching for places to be this summer, and I really liked the idea and vibe of it. It’s always a shot in the dark when you haven’t been there before but this is awesome. I love this and I’m happy that I’m here,” Sainis said.
The Strawberry N’ Arts festival is one of the largest events which takes place in the Westford Common each year, and due to that it always has quite a large amount of student volunteers. The volunteers at the fair helped serve food and raffle for the FPCU.
Sam Musante is a sophomore at Westford Academy, and volunteered at the festival as a member of her Girl Scout troop.
“The weather’s been really great,” said Musante, “The day’s been really good. I’ve been helping out at the raffle booth and raising money for charity. We’ve got a lot of people coming and the tickets are really cheap, […] we’re raffling off different items collected from the vendors, as all of them had to donate one item to the raffle. There are bags, there are paintings, pictures, jewelry, and a lot of other different things.”
All in all, the Strawberries N’ Arts Festival was a day of fun in the sun for Westford locals, with the common covered in unique work from local craftsmen, beautiful musical performances from an array of local acts, and of course, fresh strawberries.
