Danvers Family Fest kicks off Friday

By Bella Travaglini, Town Correspondent

The Danvers Family Festival, which has become a town-wide celebration embedded in the fabric of the community, begins this Friday night for its 31^st year.

The summer festivities, which span nearly 3 weeks, began 31 years ago when local John Webb and some friends created the “Land and Sea Race,” said current festival chairman Sheryl James. Participants were required to build some sort of vessel to float at Popes Landing on the Danvers River that could also be used to race on land. The feat was quite challenging, said James, but captured the spirit of a town’s celebration – fun.

Years later, the event morphed into a six-event festival operating as a nonprofit organization with a 25-member board and $250,000 budget, said James.

Danvers is unique in that the town celebration spans weeks as opposed to one day or a weekend like some other north shore communities, said Selectman Gardner Trask, who has been on the festival board for eight years. He attributes its popularity and success to “a down-home community that embraces its New England small-town persona wrapped in shades of Norman Rockwell.”

Board members work year-round planning events for the summer series and soliciting funds. All events, which attract anywhere between 300 to 60,000 people, are entirely funded through the organization, which receives corporate and private sponsorships and monies from vendors. There is a nominal fee for some events, and many folks pay over and above what is asked, said James.

Organizers of 31 additional local summer events fall under the festival’s “umbrella,” choosing to schedule their events during the same 3-week period, said James. These happenings are advertised on the Danvers Family Festival’s website and in its program as a service to the community.

“It gives the family festival diversity,” said James.

The summer celebration begins on Friday, June 18 with the Baron Mayer Champagne Reception at the Glen Magna Estates on Ingersoll Road where an award for best citizen will be presented. The events to follow are less formal with an ice cream tasting feast, and oldies night and a few others ending with July 3 fireworks at Plains Park behind the Holten Richmond School, which has drawn nearly 60,000 folks from Danvers and neighboring communities.

For more information on all the festivities, visit www.danversfamilyfestival.com.