The South Carolina Strawberry Festival is back on in Fort Mill. Online, that is.
Fort Mill will have its strawberry festival after all. It’ll just be a different kind of strawberry festival.
The town announced Wednesday it will host its annual South Carolina Strawberry Festival for 2020 as a virtual event. The festival, a series of events anchored the first weekend of May each year by huge gatherings at Elisha Park, fell victim weeks ago to social distancing measures for COVID-19. Town parks and other facilities closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Now the plan is to host many of the same elements the annual festival would have, but online. Events begin April 25.
“It’ll be something different, something fun,” said Jacona Hester, town event organizer.
Online, interactive contests will include Strawberry Idol, art, recipe video, bingo and trivia, along with a scavenger hunt, virtual car show and word search. Outgoing and incoming Strawberry Queens will deliver messages, and the event will spotlight downtown merchants, festival sponsors and vendors.
More information is online at scstrawberryfestival.com, including pages for the virtual events that will go live with the start of each event. Events run through May 2.
Daily updates on the town’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be used, as will hashtags for various competitions. Hester said the virtual festival will be a way to keep the popular event on the minds of many, but also perhaps be a welcome distraction during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“That’s what we’re trying to do, just provide an avenue,” she said. “Some fun things for people to think about other than what’s going on in our world right now.”
Mayor Guynn Savage applauded the virtual festival idea.
“We continue to work regardless of the situation to be of service and maintain a sense of community,” she said. “While it is unfortunate that we cannot host this year’s Strawberry Festival, I am proud of our staff for their creativity and dedication to find ways to celebrate at a distance.”
Savage said further decisions on public gathering will, as they have in recent weeks, come with information from experts.
“We miss the interactions with our residents and look forward to the time we can all be together again,” Savage said. “Until that time, the town will continue to make decisions for all services and events based on the best information available.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 4:02 PM.
