{"id":5314,"date":"2015-09-14T09:45:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T13:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=5314"},"modified":"2015-09-14T09:00:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T13:00:30","slug":"mushroom-festival-celebrates-30-years-of-fungi-focused-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=5314","title":{"rendered":"Mushroom Fest. celebrates 30 years of fungi-focused fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong><em>Community, tourism and of course, all things mushroom\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>By Kim Chiomento,<\/strong><\/span> <span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><em>News Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1180379\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/lisakeys1-300x225.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1180379\" class=\"wp-image-1180379 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/lisakeys1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"lisakeys\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1180379\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kennett Square&#8217;s own Food Network &#8216;Chopped&#8217; finalist, Lisa Keys, demonstrates in the festival&#8217;s culinary tent.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>KENNETT SQUARE \u2013 Visitors strolled historic Kennett Square Borough\u2019s charming streets this weekend to enjoy shopping, crafts, food vendors and entertainment as the nationally recognized festival celebrated its 30<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary.\u00a0 Despite a bit of rainy weather Saturday, with umbrellas the most popular festival accessory that day, the spirit of the weekend could not be dampened.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1180378\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/kennettlax-300x225.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1180378\" class=\"wp-image-1180378 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/kennettlax-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"kennettlax\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1180378\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">KHS&#8217; girls lacrosse team lends a hand &#8211; just a few of the hundreds of volunteers who come together to make the festival happen.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Each year, under the guidance of twelve member board, the all-volunteer Mushroom Festival organization produces the festival with a mission of promoting tourism in Chester County, and Kennett Square\u2019s favorite crop, mushrooms.<\/p>\n<p>Many don\u2019t realize that the festival maintains a charitable focus; in 2014 the festival donated more than $80,000 back to the community via Mushroom Festival Grants.\u00a0 In addition, approximately 300 volunteers, from across the community, come together to manages wide range of logistics including parking, ticketing, sales, special events and communications.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1180370\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/friendssoupanwine-300x225.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1180370\" class=\"wp-image-1180370 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/friendssoupanwine-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"friendssoupanwine\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1180370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Friends enjoying the festival&#8217;s soup and wine tasting tent.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The weekend-long festival has grown to include a popular kick-off parade Friday evening, a mile of 200 vendors, live entertainment, carnival rides, national fried mushroom eating and \u2018cute as a button\u2019 baby contests, culinary tent, soup and wine tasting, antique car show, and Mushroom Fun Run 2k.\u00a0 It has been recognized as one of the top food-focused festivals nationally, and estimates put annual attendance at 100,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>The Times is pleased to share a sampling of the weekend\u2019s fun.\u00a0 For more information visit mushroomfestival.org<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1180373\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/justin-300x225.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1180373\" class=\"wp-image-1180373 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/justin-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"justin\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1180373\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Local teens enjoying the festival scene.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Community, tourism and of course, all things mushroom\u2026 By Kim Chiomento, News Editor, The Times KENNETT SQUARE \u2013 Visitors strolled historic Kennett Square Borough\u2019s charming streets this weekend to enjoy shopping, crafts, food vendors and entertainment as the nationally recognized festival celebrated its 30th anniversary.\u00a0 Despite a bit of rainy weather Saturday, with umbrellas the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[3390],"class_list":["post-5314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-mushroom-festival-kennett-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5318,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314\/revisions\/5318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}