Pumpkinfest canceled

By CHARITY SMITH

[email protected]

Bessemer — The Bessemer Pumpkinfest is once again canceled for this year, the committee announced Wednesday night.

The festival which celebrates fall in the Upper Peninsula was originally scheduled for Sept. 24 -25, but according to Donna Frello, who chairs the committee, multiple variables such as construction and the ongoing pandemic forced their decision to cancel.

Frello said the festival only lasts a day and a half, so if an event were to get curtailed because of “mud in the road” or “restrictions on social distancing” there isn’t another date to put the event.

“With the current condition of the road and the iffiness of everything with the virus, just the current situation, it would be difficult to pull it off,” said Frello.

She said it is hard to bring the “beautiful” cars in for their annual car-show on gravel and dirt roads. The kiddie parade, usually has a lot of people pushing strollers, but dirt roads are not really conducive to strollers, Frello said. According to Frello a lot of elderly people are afraid to walk on the roads when they are not paved. She said that possible inclement weather could be problematic. If it were to rain the day before, dirt roads don’t recover as fast as asphalt, Frello said.

“A lot of the side streets are ripped up and there’s just going to be challenges,” said Frello, “With the short time frame we have, it’s not worth it to do all that, because one thing could make it all go wrong.”

Frello emphasized that it’s not the city’s fault nor anybody else’s.

“It’s a number of things,” she said. “The health department could recommend that we social distance and limit the number of people indoors again. … A lot of planning goes into this, and a couple of things not going off as planned just makes the festival not doable.”

Frello said that normally they would be selling 50/50 raffle tickets in the Stemphiars parking lot. However, if they were to do that now, it would cause a safety hazard because of the construction, she said.

“With the way that U.S. 2 is right now we just couldn’t be out there,” she said. “Right now (the festival) is just not doable. There’s too many ‘ifs’ with a lot of things.”

She said another factor was that the committee does not feel it is right to ask businesses for financial assistance to help offset costs, with the “year that they’ve had.”

“I feel better not asking for support from some of these businesses that may have been impacted by the recent shutdowns and whatnot,” said Frello.

She said they are not “pointing the finger” at anybody, it’s just the current situation is simply not conducive for such a short festival.

The next Pumpkinfest is scheduled for Sept. 23-24, 2022.