BY HAYDEN SEDER
Making the most out of the season, the Ketchum Harvest Festival will take place at Ketchum’s Forest Service Park, from 1-6 p.m., Friday, Oct 12, coinciding with the weekend-long celebration of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival.
Kelly Eisenbarger, manager of the Wood River Farmers’ Markets, will present the inaugural event as a way to bring local farmers’ foods to the people, even though the weekly markets are over for the season.
“After seeing how many farmers still have produce at the end of market season, I wanted an opportunity to have a big end-of-season party,” Eisenbarger said.
With the influx of people for the annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival, Eisenbarger found a location that could benefit from the weekend’s event without detracting from it. Eisenbarger has a decade of experience putting on events from her work in Austin, Texas, with the South by Southwest festival, weddings, and general event planning.
A resident of Hailey for the past two years, Eisenbarger has experienced many facets of the Valley from working at The Center, the Wood River Community YMCA, on Baldy and, most recently, in education at Sun Valley Community School.
While there have been several iterations of harvest festivals in the Valley—two previous, and now defunct, Sun Valley Harvest Festivals, and the current Wood River Valley Harvest Festival—this festival will focus more on supporting the artisans and farmers whose livelihoods depend on great customer relations nurtured through events like these.
“This is its first year, so we’ll have to see if the farmers think it’s worth it,” Eisenbarger said. “It’s important to support these local businesses that don’t have the ability for a brick-and-mortar shop but need the ability to sell handmade or hand-grown foods.”
The Harvest Festival will have farmers selling fall crops like squashes and pumpkins.
In addition to the bounty of fresh foods and local goods, the event will feature live music by The Beverly Lovers, hand-pressed apple cider along with fall games such as corn-shucking and apple-stacking contests. The winner of a harvest basket raffle benefiting The Hunger Coalition will get something from each vendor as well as two tickets to the Company of Fools’ holiday performance of “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” to be staged in December.
