Brockport Summer Art Festival offers returning favorites, new events

Brockport Summer Art Festival
offers returning favorites, new events

For any of the close to 50,000 visitors who visit the Brockport Summer Art Festival August 11 and 12, there will be returning favorites such as unique crafters, wide varieties of food vendors, children’s activities, the annual Duck Derby and the Farmers Market. Additionally, planners are offering two new activities - a wine tasting event and a mini health fair.

“We wanted to offer something a bit different this year,” Krys Staub, director of the Lakeside Foundation and member of the BISCO board said. “There are so many activities for the children that we wanted to add in something that would appeal to the adults.”

BISCO, short for Brockport Integrated Services Club and Organizations, along with professional organizer The Springut Group, are the festival’s planners.

The wine tasting will be in a tent at the north end of the festival, near the canal bridge and the post office, and will run from noon until 4 p.m. Sunday. For a $5 entry fee, visitors to the wine tasting will be treated to samples from seven area wineries as well as having the chance to relax, and nibble on cheese and fruit. “We’re also planning to have music inside the tent, a jazz trio playing while the adults relax and enjoy the various wines,” Staub said.

The New York wineries participating include: Heron Hill, Lamoreaux Landing, Standing Stone, Dr. Konstantin Frank, Hazlitt, Wagner and Hosmer. Tickets ($5) are available at the door the day of the event. The tent will be located between the post office and the lift bridge on Main Street.

The Arts Fest runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, August 11 and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, August 12 and features more than 100 vendors displaying their unique wares during the two day event, three stages of live entertainment and more than a dozen food vendors. From ceramics to graphics, to jewelry and metal works, the Arts Festival is the place to begin shopping for the upcoming holidays. “Shoppers will find items here that they just can’t find at other venues,” Staub said.

Food vendors featuring local favorites like Abbott’s Frozen Custard to kettle corn, crabcake sandwiches to steaks and festival favorites like pizza, hot dogs and sausages will be available for sale in addition to a variety of vendors offering cool beverages.

The Main Street area of Brockport will be closed to traffic from College Street to the canal bridge. Free shuttle service is available from the Tuttle North parking lot at SUNY Brockport.

“We’ve been doing this for the past 13 years and every year it gets bigger and offers more for the community,” Staub said. “The Arts Festival highlights what Brockport has to offer and also truly has something that appeals to all age groups.”

The Greater Rochester Association of REALTORS, Inc. is sponsoring the wine tasting, Staub said. Check the map in this special section for booths and vendors.

Parking no problem for the festival

Those who have attended the Brockport Arts Festival in the past, know that parking is hard to find and have come to rely on the free shuttle service offered through SUNY Brockport. New festival goers will appreciate the ease with which they can get to and from the festival with no parking headaches. Visitors to the festival are invited to park where there is plenty of space, no traffic hassles and free shuttle service - at the Tuttle Athletic Complex on the campus of SUNY Brockport.

For festival attendees arriving in Brockport from the east via Route 31, or the south by Route 19, continue west past Wegmans Plaza and turn onto Commencement Drive, one of two main entrances to the campus. Commencement Drive takes you to New Campus Drive where you will turn right and find yourself in the Tuttle Athletic Complex. Signs direct you to the parking areas.

From the west or north, take Redman Road, which intersects with Routes 31, 31A and 104 to New Campus Drive and the Tuttle parking lots.

It is a short three block walk to the festival from the lots but if you are saving your walking for the fest, and if you plan to come back with armfuls of goodies, you’re in luck. A free shuttle bus provided by the Brockport Student Government runs between the parking lot and the festival every 10 to 15 minutes.

The college lot provides direct access to major routes when leaving the festival, no trying to figure out how to get from a side street in or out of the village.

Ready, set, drop your ducks

The canal will be teeming with activity when hundreds of rubber ducks take to the waters on Sunday, August 12.

The Duck Derby, which annually raises close to $25,000, draws crowds to the edges of the historic waters of the Erie Canal as they cheer their duck toward the finish line. The money raised from the Duck Derby benefits Lakeside Hospital and BISCO. “The most important thing about the Duck Derby,” Krys Staub, of the Lakeside Foundation and BISCO board said, “is that the money raised during the derby is invested back into the community.”

“This year’s prizes include a $1,000 shopping spree at Wegmans, three travel certificates ranging in price from $400 to $1,000, a dinner theater package, King and Queen for a day packages and many more donated prizes,” Staub said.

Thousands of “adopted” ducks will take to the water at 4 p.m. on Sunday. The ducks are adopted by service groups or individuals and they will be set free to battle the currents in their quest for the finish line.

Ducks can be purchased individually or in various sized flocks up until the event at the Duck Derby tent. For information on the ducks call Lakeside Foundation at 395-6049.

Funds from past years’ derbies have been used to purchase equipment for the Brockport Fire Department, a defibrillator and stretchers for the emergency department at Lakeside Memorial Hospital, support of a capital renovation project at Lakeside and other similar needs.

This year’s Arts Fest will not feature the dragon boat races, Staub said.

Cool Kids Block Party, CAN-imals on Parade
are returning favorites

For the sixth year, CAN-imals will “parade” through the streets of Brockport during the Arts Festival. In 2006, the fund (and food) raising event collected more than 16,000 cans and boxes of foods for the local food shelves. Teams gather, build their food sculpture and once the event is over, the items collected are distributed to the charity of the group’s choice. Cool Kids Coordinator Steve Appleton hopes to build on last year’s “Cool efforts and energy and increase donations - and fun.”

Take a stroll down the streets and vote for your favorite sculpture on Saturday, August 11.

The Cool Kids Block Party takes to the center stage and offers a variety of interactive events for children and adults. Rochester Rhinos inflatables and Rochester Amerks inflatable hockey fun and prizes are on tap as are pet therapy animals from Lollypop Farm.

Museum Madness will make a return appearance and there will be 19th century games, an “instrumental petting zoo,” magic, a giant chess game, bubblemania, street chalk graffiti and other events.

The Block Party kicks off at 10 a.m. and continues throughout the day. For information and schedules call the Cool Kids hotline at 637-3984 or go to www.generationcool.biz.

Visit the mini health fair during the Fest

A mini health fair will bring together various community organizations that will be sharing their information with the public. Lakeside Health System and its Wellness Center will have a booth.

Doctors Glowinsky and Harding, dentists for children, will offer a unique way to safeguard children in case they need to be identified.

“We will be doing tooth prints,” Nicole Passafiume, from the dental office said. “We will give parents a moistened wafer for their child to bite down on. It will not only make an impression of their child’s teeth, it will also hold DNA traces because of the child’s saliva. It’s a way to safeguard children.”

The tooth prints are available for children three to 18 years old and take less than three minutes to perform. “The parent will walk away with the imprint that is unique to their child.”

Krys Staub, of the Lakeside Foundation and a member of BISCO, said the health fair is a good way to disseminate information to the public. “We have so many people gathered all in one place and the health fair is a way to offer them information they can walk away with.”