To the Editor:

The Altamont Fall Festival returns for its second year on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Orsini Park, Schilling Park, and the Masonic Temple.

Join us for a free, family-friendly event to celebrate the beauty of autumn with homemade artisan vendors, farm-fresh vegetables, live music, food and drink, food demonstrations and presentations, a bounce house, face-painting, pumpkin-painting, games for kids and adults, and so much more!

We’d like introduce our first Village Scarecrow Contest. We invite Altamont residents and organizations to create a scarecrow for display along historic Main Street and encourage businesses to create a scarecrow in their front doors or inside their stores for their own judging category. There are 19 first-come, first-served spots, so register with us soon!

You, the public, can vote for your favorite scarecrow from Monday, Sept. 25 through Saturday, Sept. 30, with winners and prizes announced at our festival. Scarecrows will stay up until Nov. 1 to keep the spirit of the season alive in our village.

Calling all amateur bakers! Dust off your workstations and flour your rolling pins for Altamont’s first Apple-Baking Contest. We invite amateur bakers to use local apples to create homemade tasty desserts. There will be two divisions, Junior (for ages 7 to 16) and Adult (age 17 and older) with prizes for first, second, and third place in each division. Entry forms will be accepted up to 9 a.m. festival day.

Businesses and organizations will have their doors open with fall-themed activities too, so we invite you to take a stroll through our village for even more fun.

Information on our festival, including contest rules and entry forms, may be found on our website: altamontfallfestival.org

An enormous thank-you to our Grower Sponsor for the second year, Leanne Royer of CM Fox Real Estate. We are so appreciative of Leanne’s support in getting our festival off the ground.

We look forward to seeing you Sept. 30 for a fun-filled, fall-themed day!

Madeline LaMountain

Village Trustee

Altamont