The Eastmont Tomato Festival, the summer celebration of Eastern Montgomery County and all things tomato, will be held Saturday at the Meadowbrook Community Center (267 Alleghany Springs Road, Shawsville).
It’s all day tomato-reveling in Shawsville and festivities launch with a Mater Madness workout at 7:15 a.m. at the Waldron Health Center, registration for all festival events begins at 8:30 a.m. and the festival officially opens with great fanfare at 10 a.m.
Local musicians, like Stonehouse, Tonic and Ft. Vause, and magician Mark Fuller will add a saucy lilt to the day under the big oaks in the community center courtyard as people in Cherokee Purple regalia strollering babies dressed as Big Boys and plump cherry toms view contests of tomato growing, tomato cooking and tomato art. The tomato-eating contest is said to be “a riot.”
The Eastmont Tomato Festival really starts in early May. In spring, The Meadowbrook Garden Day and Tractor Show event gives out hundreds of tomato plants. All summer, people throughout Montgomery County who have watered and fed their plants, now harvest a fat crop to provision the festival.
“Thursday starts the mad rush of collecting the tomatoes from the free plants we handed out at Garden Day,” Marie Goodwin said.
Goodwin and Meredith Novak have been co-chairs of the event since the festival began.
“Then there is sorting, washing, cutting and cooking to be done. Set up begins Friday night and continues Saturday morning until the festival starts at 10 a.m.,” she said. “It really is a lot of fun and we try to have something for the entire community. This year we will have games for 3-5 year old called the Cherry Tomato Challenge.”
The festival raises funds for the Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation whose efforts imagined and established the community hub that is the Meadowbrook Center.
The foundation holds summer concerts, runs the Old Elliston Firehouse Thrift Store, and sponsors scholarships for the children and beneficial efforts for everybody, pursuing a mission that envisions a prosperous eastern Montgomery County that is healthy, productive and proud of its heritage.
To that end, the EastMont Tomato Festival commemorates local history that recalls the river-rich, mountain-ringed eastern end of the county that was once the home of busy tomato canneries in this late-summer celebration of local gardening skill, music and tomato art.
For more information, please visit: www.eastmonttomatofestival.org or www.facebook.com/EastMontTomatoFestival.
Schedule
- 7:15 a.m. Mater Madness, sponsored by waldron wellness center
- 8:30 a.m. registration for all events begins
- 10:00 a.m. official opening of 11th annual eastmont tomato festival on lee Hartman & Sons stage
- 10:00 a.m. band – Tonic
- 10:30 a.m. Tomato Pageant
- 10:45 a.m. closing of the entries for contests (entries must remain until after awards)
- tomato growing – conducted by NRV Master Gardeners
- tomato cooking – conducted by Montgomery County Extension
- tomato art work – conducted by Eastmont Art Association and
Meadowbrook Library
- 11:15 a.m. Magician – Mark Fuller
- 12:00 p.m. Thank you to sponsors and other announcements, announcing contest winners for the tomato growing, cooking, artwork contest
- 12:15 p.m. band – Stonehouse, starting with the Eastmont tomato song
- 12:15 p.m. Tomatolympics, and cherry tomato challenge
- 1:30 p.m. band – Fort Vause
- 2:15 p.m. presentation of medals for the tomatolympics
- 2:30 p.m. Tomato eating contests (kids and adults)
