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Light Drizzle Fog/Mist Grandest Baldwin Festival yet coming very soon! Event promises more vendors than ever when it makes its return
The Grand Baldwin Festival is coming back within the next few weeks, and it promises to be bigger than ever.
The event, which is expected to return later this month or in early June, was scheduled for last Saturday, but was rained out. More than 100 vendors are signed up to take part when it does take place, hosted by the Community Coalition of Baldwin and celebrating the community.
David Viana, a co-chair of the event, said it would be the largest one ever since the event debuted in the fall of 2019. “We’ve been saying that this will be our grandest festival yet, because it will include the most . . . vendor spaces that we’ve ever had,” he said. According to Viana, there will be no more room for vendors, with some 112 planning to be involved. The event was initially scheduled to be held on the Baldwin Public Library parking lot, but the site for the rain date had not been finalized as the Herald went to press.
“We’re very excited to have so many vendors,” Viana said. “It will be a mix of food vendors, retail, clothing, accessories, housewares and jewelry. So it’s a nice, eclectic mix of different vendors from Baldwin.”
The food vendors will include Pops and Poosh, a Haitian restaurant; the Irish Pub; and Vienna Cookie, a bakery in town. Joining them for the first time is Bites Galore Sweetique, a new cupcake bakery. According to Viana, those are just some of the vendors that will offer food.
“We have a couple different performances that will be playing during the course of the festival,” he said. The format will be similar to the two previous festivals, but this time the theme will be spring instead of fall. The even was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and rained out last fall. This will be the first time it will be held in the spring, because the planning committee wanted to organize it again as soon as possible after the fall rainout, when it was not rescheduled.
“It’s just a very fulfilling, gratifying, wonderful feeling to see the community come out, and be excited, and patronize all of our different businesses, and just be happy about celebrating the Baldwin community,” Viana said. “We recognize that celebrating Baldwin doesn’t only mean celebrating the businesses in Baldwin or only people who live in Baldwin — we’re a community that welcomes everybody, including folks from outside our community. So for one day, we really get to celebrate all of that.”
Some of the funds raised at the festival will go toward $500 in scholarships for Baldwin High School students. And, Viana said, “We are looking to utilize a more significant portion of the funds (for) community-building projects,” which may include a community garden or some other kind of beautification work.
After last weekend’s rains, the event’s planning committee sent out an emailed update, which read, “We do not take postponing this event lightly and understand the incredible hard work and preparation many of you must do to prepare for this event. While our refund policy as posted on our website is ‘If the event is canceled due to circumstances beyond our control, no refunds or accommodations will be made,’ we WILL permit rolled over fees to the rescheduled event. If you are unable to attend the rescheduled event, we will not be issuing refunds.”
