8/24/2013 “Harvesting Our Future” Event Fills Void Left by Harvest Fest This Year

By: Ben Haut, WKVI

Published: August 8th, 2013

Many people throughout Knox and the surrounding area were sad to learn that there would be no Harvest Festival this year because no one offered to head up the committee, but a group of women have taken it unto themselves to host a smaller event – something for the children, according to “Harvesting Our Future” board member Colleen Jones.

“Harvesting Our Future is just a group of us women – Lora Thompson Hall, myself and Barb Roberts – coming together, noticing that the Harvest Fest was not going to be put on for the community, so we tried just to step up to allow the community to have some kind of interaction, some kind of fun, and it is about our future, and our children are our future so we decided that we were going to come together as mothers and work together to have a parade and a car show,” said Jones.

That’s not all the event will offer, however. Jones explained the event will also feature vendors, a jump house, finger painting, and other events as well. She said the community has really come forward to help as much as possible.

“And then we decided why not have some face painting, a pie eating contest for fun, and we got a lot of the local businesses and one of them is Rob from Downtown Depot who’s putting on the pie eating contest. So, we have a lot of interaction with Knox, the heart of the community, which is willing to step up and help us with Harvesting Our Future,” Jones said.

While the women are asking for donations to participate in the car show, she said they’re not asking for money; rather, they’re looking for canned goods that would be given to the local food pantry – and at a perfect time, too, as the food pantry recently announced they are in need of help to serve nearly 1000 families each month.

“All we’re asking for the car show is not even a donation of money, we’re just asking to bring a canned good item to go back into the community, to give back to the local food pantry to help them out too,” Jones said.

The event will take place on Aug. 24 with no entry fee. Registration for the car show begins at 8 a.m. CT at Knox City Park, where a variety of other attractions will take place as well. The car show begins at 10 a.m. and awards will be given to the top three in various categories with judging to be held at 12 p.m. The car show ends at 1 p.m., and the parade will follow shortly after at 3 p.m. beginning at the Knox High School on Main Street. Those lining up for the parade are encouraged to arrive at 1 p.m.

For more information on the car show, contact Barb Roberts at (574) 772-6998 or Jones at (574) 772-7258. For parade information, contact Lora Thompson Hall at (574) 806-4278.