Winterfest a warm winter welcome to Saxonburg
SAXONBURG — Sun, snow cones and smiles welcomed visitors to Saxonburg from near and far at the borough’s second annual Winterfest on Saturday, Feb. 25.
“We’re from Ohio,” said Josie Johnson. “We’re visiting our grandma right now, and passing through we saw the festival — so we brought the family and we all came down.”
Josie and her sister, Ella, said the festival’s horse-drawn carriage ride was the highlight of their day.
“It was so fun,” Josie said, laughing. “Riding around, seeing the horse.”
Behind them, their mother Denise Johnson helped their two brothers, Braden and Luka, play a hole of miniature golf set up inside the South Butler Community Library.
“We’re promoting our indoor mini-golf that we’re going to have in April, so we have ‘get a hole-in-one, you get a free ticket’ for adults — kids are already free,” library director Michelle Lesniak said. “Just trying to get them used to the idea that, at the library, we have an indoor, 18-hole mini-golf on the weekend of April 14 — the whole library will be a golf course.”
Lesniak said that, in addition to miniature golf, the packed library was hosting a Lego challenge for children, a bottle-cap art station and a book sale during Winterfest.
“In the winter, everybody needs something to do,” Lesniak said. “It’s just a great reason to have people come into town. It helps the business owners in the town; it just gets people out and about.”
And people and businesses certainly were “out and about.” Crowds moved through a variety of food, art and craft vendors outside local shops on Main Street. Kids carried foam swords; adults carried foaming beer — and everyone wore a smile.
One smiling resident, Rachelle Savannah-Haberberger, said it was her first time at the event.
“I think what’s fun is that we bring vendors into the community, but it also gets people to support the businesses that are on, you know, Main Street,” she said.
Savannah-Haberberger attened with her husband Scott Haberberger, her niece Sophia Savannah and her nephew Luca Savannah. She said they had already been up and down Main Street — having breakfast quiche at Batch, wine at Saxonburg Heritage Wine Cellars, coffee at the Shepherd’s Coffee booth, and a game of golf and Legos at the library.
“Our favorite part, we got to see the man down behind the winery carve ice,” Savannah-Haberberger said. “He carved Sophia an ice candy cane; he carved Luca an ice-lollipop. He had an ice beer stein, and I had an ice guitar.”
While the Savannah-Haberberger family chomped shaved ice in line for their horse-drawn carriage ride, Brandy Maglione of Little Blessings Farm and Mobile Petting Zoo introduced visitors to some four-legged friends of her own.
“They’re kind of taking a break from eating right now,” Maglione said. “And the babies are taking a little afternoon nap.”
Maglione’s petting zoo of goats, kids and lambs gathered a crowd of eager little hands and loving sighs. The business, she said, started with just two goats — a birthday gift from her husband — and “spiraled” into an opportunity for the community.
“When we ended up with all these different animals,” Maglione said, “we thought maybe we just kind of share it — share Little Blessings with everyone.”
The theme of sharing with the community set the tone for Winterfest. Brian Antoszyk, president of the Saxonburg Area Rotary Club, said that is what events like this are all about.
“In the three years that we’ve been a club, we’ve given back roughly $90,000 to the community,” Antoszyk said.
According Antoszyk, the club’s barrel-shaped stall on Saturday helped raise money for both the club itself and an ongoing project to construct a pavilion behind the South Butler Community Library.
“We have our famous barrel that we do concessions out of, so we do our specialty-blend hot sausage; we do a Philly cheese steak bratwurst,” he said. “We have a signature beer that’s paired with the hot sausage, and then also we have our Rotary bar, which we’re doing hot apple cider and hot chocolate — either straight-up or spiked.”
Antoszyk said that the club also planned to drive their refurbished trolley down main street at the close of the event — in homage to the borough’s trolley system of old.
“This is part of how we keep our survive-ability, but also so we can give back to the community as well,” he said.
Residents Mark and Sharon Sampson said the Rotary’s hot sausage sandwiches were just one of the many reasons they returned for the event’s second year.
“We just like seeing people out in Saxonburg,” Mark Sampson said. “We moved here because its a small town community.”
Sharon Sampson said she was impressed with how the event had grown.
“They’ve got a lot more vendors this year,” she said. “It’s really nice to see it expanding.”
Ultimately though, big or small, the couple agreed that the day was all about community.
“It’s nice to have something this time of year to bring people out,” Sharon Sampson said. “Saxonburg’s a great place for people to go.”
