Boxerwood's 11th annual Fall Family Festival and Spectacle
September 25 - 1:00 - 5:00 pm

A giant puppet Spectacle, fossil dig and scarecrow-making contest will be among the highlights of this year’s Fall Family Festival at Boxerwood.

The nature center’s annual event has in past years attracted hundreds of Rockbridge families, providing adults and children with a variety of seasonal activities, entertainment and food. Inspired by the literally huge success of their Harvest Spectacle two festivals ago, involving 20-foot tall puppets and a cast of more than 40 performers, Stephanie Hodde and Jim Stewart are co-directing a second spectacle production.

Entitled “The Bones of Boxerwood,” this performance will chronicle the evolution of Boxerwood from its imagined prehistory to the arrival of Dr. Robert Munger, who planted 12,000 trees in what was once a hayfield and nurtured the woodland garden the public enjoys today.

The Spectacle will begin at 3:45 with a community procession to the meadow.

Some of this year’s festival activities connect with the theme of prehistoric Boxerwood, while others are more seasonal. Families can sift for fossils, paint trilobite pendants, and create origami crow mobiles and noise-makers to use in the spectacle procession. They can also press apples for cider, stomp grapes to the tune of a fiddle, and create scarecrow characters (bring your own old clothes, straw provided). The festival will also feature a Farmer’s Market, where Rockbridge growers and producers will vend local produce and products. The SPCA will bring pets looking for adoption and the Recycle Bus will be parked at the lodge, where kids can decorate recycled cans for holding their fossils and other treasures. “Even the food is fun,” asserts Jess Sullivan, an event organizer. On the menu are “Walking Tacos” (a foil bag of tortilla chips filled with a person’s favorite toppings), roasted corn and potatoes, homemade cider donuts, and ice cream.

Admission to the Fall Family Festival and Spectacle is free, but festival-goers are requested to “pay what you will” for parking. All proceeds from parking and some hands-on activities will go to Keep Boxerwood Blooming, the Boxerwood Education Association’s 2010-11 campaign to fund its environmental programming for the public schools.

You can see more information, including pictures and the rehearsal schedule, on the Spectacle Project Facebook page.

For further inquiries about participating as a performer or as a visual artist, please contact Stephanie Hodde at 540-460-4225. We hope you are able to join us in September as we once again celebrated the beauty of the season, the fruits of the Harvest, and the spirit of our rural community.