A Berry Successful Festival

The Massapequa Strawberry Festival began at 10 a.m. on Saturday. By 11:30, the strawberries put up for sale were gone.

The festival's organizers would not have been wrong if they had declared the event a success and pointed to the quick sellout as evidence. But there was another reason.

"There just aren't any Long Island strawberries left," Bill Colfer,  the president of The Historical Society of The Massapequas which sponsored  the festival, said sheepishly.  The organizers have maintained a loyalty to strawberries grown on Long Island, but it seems the red summer fruit came a bit too soon this year.

"The strawberries were harvested a month early and the growers almost completely sold out by the time the Festival came around," said Donna Cohen, a trustee and former society president at the start of the festival. "This is the first year that we only got enough Long Island strawberries to make strawberry shortcake. We still have packs of fresh strawberries for sale, but we had to get them from California."

The decision to only use the Long Island strawberries for the shortcake turned out to be a wise one.  The dreamy deserts were still on sale hours after the interloping berries from the west coast had disappeared.

Linda Hanna, a member of The Historical Society, who was in charge of making the strawberry shortcake,  filled us in on what it takes  to deliver this delicious concoction. "We get the sheet cakes from a local bakery in Massapequa Park," she said  while helping customers. "We spent three hours last night slicing up 64 quarts of Long Island strawberries and mixing the shortcake sauce." The strawberry shortcake's quality spoke for itself, as Massapequa residents lined up for a taste.

Also filling the stomachs of festival-goers was a vendor selling hot dogs with all the fixings, chips, and sodas.

A large number of sellers were on hand, selling a plethora of fine goods.

Items available for purchase included hand-made wooden birdhouses, wine bottle night lights, jewelry, hand-sewn crafts, toys, music CDs, strawberry breads and jams, artificial flowers,  and sand art.

All of these items were beautiful, one-of-a-kind creations.  They're not to be found at a shopping mall, but only at local community events such as the Strawberry Festival. 

"We've been doing the Strawberry Festival for at least 20 years," Colfer said. "We want to energize the history of Massapequa." The organization  holds the event to raise money and to increase awareness about the festival and Old Grace Church, Colfer said.

So why choose strawberries as a basis for a Festival? "Well, there are no better strawberries than on Long Island," Colfer declared with pride. "New York is also a great apple state, so in October every year we also do an Apple Festival as well. It's a great way to re-enforce the history of Long Island."

"We want the community to get together- they look forward to the Festival every year," Cohen said.  It certainly helps us, because this is where we get the money to help run Old Grace Church. Plus, it's a beautiful day for once...it rained last year!"