Irwinville Community Center hosts inaugural Irwinville Fall Festival
The Irwinville Fall Festival will debut Saturday at the Irwinville Community Center.
IRWINVILLE — As the citizens who were integral in hosting this small Irwin County community’s annual Backyard Barbecue gradually aged out, others in the community got together to discuss a different kind of event.
Their answer — the Irwinville Fall Festival — will debut Saturday at the Irwinville Community Center. The festival, dubbed “Peanuts, Pecans and People,” will feature food vendors, arts and crafts, and plenty of fun activities for all ages.
“Irwinville was the county seat of Irwin County until around 1907,” Robert Benson, treasurer of the Irwinville Community group that is planning the festival, said. “There was an old school in the community that closed in the 1950s. The school’s lunchroom has become the Community Center that’s used for special events throughout the year.
“The barbecue was always in July, when it was so hot here. We decided to move the festival to November when it was cooler and the gnats are not so bad.”
Scheduled to be a part of the festival, which kicks off at 11 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m., are a kids area that includes carnival-style games, food trucks, arts and crafts vendors, baked goods, home-made jams and jellies, a cornhole tournament (registration starts at 10:30 a.m., the tournament at 11), a cake walk (3 p.m.) and raffle drawings for prizes that include a 6,500-watt generator, BOSE earbuds, a Yeti cooler, a regulation cornhole set and more.
The raffle drawings are scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
Other festival features include an Irwinville Methodist Church Quilt Show, with the opportunity for individuals to sew their own quilt square, community booths from Wiregrass Adult Education, TSA, Combat Veterans Association, plus an Ask the Preacher booth sponsored by Irwinville Baptist Church. Visitors also will be able to purchase “love lights” to honor or remember loved ones who’ve had cancer tor the community’s Tree Lighting Ceremony Dec. 6.
Also on Saturday, Civil War re-enactors will hold an event at nearby Jefferson Davis State Park, and a living history demonstration will be held at the Lieutenant’s Rest Antiques.
“We planned the festival to try and give back to our community, to bring that sense of community back,” Benson said. “My mom always said Irwinville is ‘God’s little piece of heaven on Earth,’ and that’s the way we feel about our community.”
All proceeds from the festival will support the Irwinville Community Center.
For additional information, contact Benson at (813) 205-3544 or Wyatt Thompson at (229) 256-3071.
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