A news story assignment I completed within the frame of my Digital Media Content Creation studies at UCSD Extension in 2018.

Peach Festival

WEATHERFORD, Texas – The 34th annual Parker County Peach Festival, held in the city’s historic downtown district on July 14, 2018, brought the community together over peaches, its Peach Pedal Bike Ride and the pooches from the local animal shelter.

More than 200 arts, crafts and food vendors participated in the one-day event, offering items such as humming-bird feeders, book cut-outs and Texas-themed decorations, festival foods and refreshments like lemonade and mangonadas. Many boasted the coveted peach-themed creations – from Parker County peaches, festival t-shirts and peach cobbler to peach soap, peach-flavored honey sticks and peach salsa.

“The booths that had peach-related foods and goodies were my favorite part of the Peach Festival,” first-time visitor Courtney Campbell said. “I (…) was excited every time I saw a creative way people included peaches.”

With its peachy creations, the festival generally draws more than 35,000 visitors to the city known as the Peach Capital of Texas, according to the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce. In addition, it is an essential event for local nonprofits and causes.

Festival activities included the Peach Pedal Bike Ride, which benefited United Way of Parker County, an organization that supports local nonprofits, and the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce. The race comprised four rides of varying distances to choose from and took participants through rural Parker County.

Among the many booths, festival visitors could also find the Weatherford Parker County Animal Shelter’s mobile adoption unit and Parker County Pets Alive (PCPA), a local nonprofit organization dedicated to sponsoring selected medical care for the shelter’s dogs.

The Peach Festival presented a chance to “educate the community about who we are and what we do as an organization,” PCPA member Cindy Malik explained. In addition to educating, the nonprofit’s focus lay on fundraising, she said. “We cannot provide the sponsorships we do without the financial support of the community.”

And the community showed up, despite the triple-digit weather, for local peaches and local causes.