Volunteers Collaborate To Save Market Day

For more than three decades, the Newtown Historic Association has hosted Market Day, an annual colonial craft and art fair.

But this year, the future of the event was in jeopardy until a group of local volunteers stepped up to make it happen.

Thanks to them, the 35th annual Market Day will be held Saturday, Oct. 6 at the Half Moon Inn on Court Street and Centre Avenue. The day features crafters, demonstrators and artists, including quilters, woodcarvers, beekeepers and more.

Bill Mahler, a member of the Historic Association’s Board of Directors, said putting on the event is a lot of work and in the past the burden has fallen on just a few people. He said he's thankful a group of volunteers have stepped up to help.

Mahler said Bronwyn Jones, also on the Board of Directors, spearheaded the effort to save Market Day. “She took it upon herself to reach out and solicit volunteers,” he explained. The end result is the formation of a large committee that will spread the duties out over a group of people, Mahler said.

Market Day revives an old harvest season tradition in Newtown, when local farmers brought their crops to town to sell and enjoy a day of festivities and contests that culminated with a horse race down State Street. 

However, Mahler said the Historic Association is trying to come up with ways to maximize profitability of the event while still providing a “great service for the community,” he said.

In recent years, Market Day hasn’t generated much of a profit for the Historic Association, which relies on money from the event to stay afloat.

“One of the ways that we generate income from it is we take a percentage of what the vendors make. If that’s down, we get hit too. With the economic downturn we’ve had fewer vendors than in the past,” he said.

This year, Mahler said, the Association hopes to involve more of the downtown businesses with the planning of the event.

And it’s not just Market Day the Association is hoping people get behind. Mahler said the group is trying to drive up its membership in general.

“It’s been the same small group of core people that have been at the center for the past 15 or 20 years. We’re trying to ease the burden by expanding our membership,” he said.

In addition to hosting Market Day, “we do some really nice programs,” Mahler said. Plus, there’s a research center at the Half Moon Inn that features “anything having to do with Newtown.” The research center has information about local properties, historical artifacts and local genealogy.

For more information or to get involved, visit www.newtownhistoric.org.