The leaves are turning, the tour buses are gliding down State Street, and you can almost smell pumpkin spice in the air. It’s time for the ninth Fall Festival for Montpelier’s PIE (Partners in Education), a committee dedicated to supporting the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools District.
On Oct. 4 from 12 to 4 p.m., the Statehouse lawn will once again be filled with inflated bouncy houses, fantastical electric vehicles, Halloween costumes for swapping, and games for everyone. The Celebrity Dunk Tank will be there; however, a list of the brave souls who’ve signed up hasn’t yet been revealed. Music from local bands and dramatic performances are just two examples of all the entertainment offered. Raffle tickets are available as well as donation boxes. The festival itself, except for the food trucks, is free.
The highlights of this event have been pretty consistent over the years, but there are some new features, for example, adult organizers from PIE, such as Edisa Gonzalez-Revilla Muller, have been gradually handing over the reins to Montpelier High School students.
Natalie Remick, then a MHS junior, ran the 2024 Festival with help from friends. This year, Remick is back again with a team including Maya Kotkes-Cummings and Alyce Jerome.
It’s not as if the trio had time on their hands. Remick is a stage manager for both the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub and the MHS Masque. Jerome is a field hockey player, a hospital volunteer, and has been involved with medical mission trips to Costa Rica. Kotkes-Cummings is an actress and a singer who’s performed with Lost Nation Theater, the MHS Masque, and at the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub.
What draws them back to this event despite their heavy schedules? “It was so much fun last year,” says Remick. “You meet so many new people.” Kotkes-Cummings agrees and adds that she’s sung at the last two festivals. Jerome notes, “Although I do a lot of volunteering, I hadn’t done anything community based.”
The three also see the event as an opportunity for growth.“ Last year,” says Remick, “I was trying to do everything. This year I’m more focused on leadership and delegation.”
Jerome chimes in, “I’m learning to be more organized and professional … learning how to effectively communicate with adults (festival sponsors) who are not members of our school community.” For Kotkes-Cummings, the festival is a chance to master the technology used in both the musical and the dramatic performances.
In addition to the youthful leadership, the PIE Committee recently announced another change. The one-mile fun run is being renamed in honor of Nathan Suter, a much loved track coach who died of a heart attack last spring. The honor seems just right to the team running the festival.
“He got the community doing things,” says Kotkes-Cummings, “We want to keep that alive.”
Suter believed in connecting people, and the festival does just that by drawing in residents and businesses to sponsor the event, recruiting volunteers to manage games, paint faces, sell raffle tickets, and keep the lines moving at the bouncy houses, and by giving teenagers an opportunity to see how much they have to have to offer the world.
When eight-year-old Penny Drechsler was asked what she remembered about last year’s festival, her first response was “We got to dunk people.”
Mary Cole Mello serves on the board of the MRPS Partners in Education.
