Shoppers show up for Winterfest
More than 40 vendors included returning artists and groups, but there were also first-time Winterfest vendors represented. Hillsville Potter Bonnie Undseth, who has only been making pottery for a couple of years, drew a crowd in her studio room.
The few inches of snow that fell the day before Winterfest – Dec. 6 and 7 – didn't stop shoppers from participating in The Floyd Center for the Arts holiday shopping tradition. With roads plowed, general parking areas at the Center scraped and salted, and temperatures well above freezing, attendees flowed in and out over the two-day event.
Winterfest is one of the Center's biggest yearly fundraisers and the longest running one, turning 31 this year. It's also one of the Center's best attended events.
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"The Living Traditions Festival this year became our biggest turnout, but Winterfest was our biggest before that," said FCA Executive Director Keela Dooley Marshall. She said that The Living Traditions Festival received a lot of grant funding but that Winterfest is supported by the community.
The addition of the Festival of Trees and Wreaths Silent Auction in 2013 has been a patron favorite and is a boon to the Center's fundraising and community involvement. Businesses have stepped up to creatively decorate table trees and stock them full of donated gifts and gift certificates.
Marshall reported the Center has about 25-30 volunteers, including board members, who are available all year long and were called on to prepare and to staff Winterfest, a free to the public event.