Community abounds at St. Peter’s harvest festival

It’s officially fall, so gather in the car and head on over to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Greenport for the congregation’s annual harvest festival on Saturday, Oct. 11. 

What started out as a congregational activity at St. Peter’s in 2006 to get facetime with the community has now turned into a much-anticipated yearly event. Nearly 20 years later, the festival offers much more than facetime: it offers support.

Along with what Pastor Garret Johnson calls “the largest garage sale on the North Fork” are homemade food and drink offerings, music and raffles from nearby businesses to take part in. The sale offers books, CDs and DVDs, plants, jewelry, furniture, tools and more. Some unofficial musicians from the church community will also play some tunes.

“We have a huge garage sale that takes place at the event. That is probably the primary fundraiser,” Paster Johnson said. “We receive donations from people in the community. Oftentimes, we will get things that are left over from other people’s garage sales.”

In the early years, the church began to use the revenue from the event to support community outreach. All of the money netted after the expenses would go toward local civil organizations. Money from past years has gone to groups such as CAST, East End Hospice, Kait’s Angels and North Fork Parish Outreach. 

Over the past five or six years, the festival has more than doubled and has generated over $20,000. No less than $15,000 of that has been reinvested back into the community. Also, for the last dozen or so years, St. Peter’s has been using some of the funds to award $1,000 scholarships to six nearby seniors. To qualify, seniors have to be able to demonstrate they’re active in their own church community and are planning to continue their education, either generally or in music.

People flock to the festival, and Pastor Johnson said they often need police tape to keep the crowd at bay before it starts — which is, of course, a happy sight. 

“I would estimate that we probably have somewhere between 700 and 1,000 people that attend the event every year,” he said. “This is done by the church, for the community, and in many ways, by the community. Without the [garage sale], it would hardly be the event that it is for all of us.”

This year’s harvest festival will take over the church grounds at 71305 Main Rd., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.