Stephen Vance, Staff
The first phase in preparing roughly 250 scarecrows for the annual Scarecrow Invasion & Family Festival is stuffing plastic bags with newspaper in order to create 500 arms, 500 legs, and 250 heads and torsos, and to get all that work done, event organizers rely on a large team of volunteers. As has become tradition, Meaford students also help out at some of the scarecrow building workshops.
For one of the building workshops, held on Wednesday, May 25, 20 Grade seven and eight students from Meaford Community School enjoyed a morning out of the classroom to help stuff plastic bags with newspaper to create scarecrow arms and legs at the Rotary Harbour Pavilion, while other volunteers were busy creating heads for the scarecrows.
Head Scarecrow Marilyn Morris told The Independent that the festival, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, would not be possible if not for the hundreds of volunteers who dedicate numerous hours each year preparing for the event.
“The kids come and they do all our arms and legs. It takes 2,000 stuffed bags to make 250 scarecrows,” said Morris. “By the last workshop on June 2 (postponed to June 8), we will have all the body parts to start building, and come August, we dress them, we create them.”
Once completed, the scarecrows are affixed to light standards and buildings, and others are included in displays in the downtown core in advance of what has become Meaford’s largest event weekend of the year.
More than 250 volunteers help each year with preparations for the Scarecrow Invasion, and many of them dedicate a substantial number of hours assembling and displaying scarecrows throughout the municipality, as well as coordinating the family festival held at Meaford’s harbour.
Morris says that the large volunteer base has enabled the festival to grow significantly over its 20 year history.
“Oh my gosh, it’s evolved with time. It started with a little wee festival in the downtown,” recalled Morris. “And really it started in response to the Apple Harvest Craft Show wanting to be able to get the people who come to the craft show to at least get downtown and go to a restaurant and or do a little shopping. So there’s an evolution of the festival itself which really started as scarecrows coming in and going out for just that weekend and then being put away by the business owners, to the community catching onto it, to businesses outside the downtown core catching on. It’s like a tumbleweed, it just grows and grows.”
So outstanding is the volunteer commitment to the event that five years ago Meaford’s Scarecrow Invasion & Family Festival received the June Callwood Outstanding Achievement Award for Voluntarism in Ontario.
The June Callwood award for outstanding achievement for voluntarism recognizes leadership, innovation, and creativity in volunteerism and community service. June Callwood was a Canadian journalist, author, feminist, and community activist. Her life’s work reflected her strong conscience, sense of social justice, and the special attention she paid to issues affecting children and women.
In recent years organizers of the event have developed an annual theme for the Scarecrow Invasion, which they say has helped to increase the participation of business owners who create displays in shop windows leading up to the event. The very first theme for the Scarecrow Invasion was ‘The Wizard of Oz’, which resulted in a wide range of creative displays which paid homage to the classic movie.
The theme for the 20th edition of the festival, which will be held on Friday, September 30 this year, is ‘Scarecrows Celebrate 20 years With Music’.
As the festival has grown over the years, voluntarism isn’t the only recognition the event has garnered. For the past few years the festival was included in the Top 100 Festivals and Events in Ontario as presented by Via Rail Canada. According to Festivals and Events Ontario, the top 100 represent festivals and events that excel within the industry.
The 20th anniversary edition of the festival will include the always heavily attended parade through the downtown en route to the harbour, where there will be food and games for everyone. Organizers also have some surprises in store, though they are keeping their scarecrow lips buttoned about details for now.
“There are some surprises, but I can’t tell you,” Morris said with a laugh, when asked about any special plans in the works for the festival. “This year, because it’s a special birthday, those who attend can expect a lot of hootenanies – very much in keeping with what scarecrows would do. We’re going to celebrate, there will be a party,” offered Morris, adding that this year’s festival will be filled with the sound of music.
