Every year around this time, I say something along the lines of, “Another Harvest Days is in the books. Thank you to everyone. What a great year!”
So guess what I’m here to do again? Yes, pretty much the same thing … but all of that stuff I just said times a hundred.
This year was Harvest Days as usual, but for me, things were a little different. I am the president of the Britton Area Chamber, as I have been for the past few years, but this year I had to step up my game quite a bit.
Earlier this year, our wonderful executive director, Emily, moved on to pursue her own very cool business opportunity. I knew we were going to lose her eventually because she’s simply too good at everything. Anyway, we weren’t able to successfully hire anyone for the position, and as Harvest Days approached, it was going to be too much work to try to accomplish that and pull off the event at the same time.
In other words, it was finally time for me to step up when it came to Harvest Days, I guess.
This wasn’t because I am magically the best or most organized person. But at least by name, I am the president, and I am currently the longest-serving board member, so I guess it was my time.
Believe me, I’m pretty lazy, so all of this was not something I was jumping for joy about. I’d much rather be sitting on the beach or planning trivia nights. But I think the good Lord was pushing me to be of service.
So, since May, I have been eating, breathing and sleeping Harvest Days — at least in my head. If I woke up during the night, there was a good chance I wasn’t going to fall back asleep very easily because Harvest Days plans and logistics would start rolling through my head.
What were we forgetting? What should I be doing? Who needed to be contacted? What was the next thing on the list?
Despite my rising panic over the last several weeks, I think we really pulled it off. And that happened because of so many great people, groups and organizations who came together to make it happen. Please see our thank-you elsewhere in the paper, but there’s not enough I can say about all the different individuals and entities that contributed to the three-day event.
My board was awesome. Everybody took the lead on various tasks and came up with new and great ideas that really panned out and made for a special event. Every business, organization and individual we worked with said yes to our ideas and pleas for help and came through with flying colors.
The phrase “it takes a village” is pretty cliché, but I can’t really think of a better way to say it.
I also have to give a huge thank you to my family, who did so much over the last week. That included entertaining my children for many hours at a time to free both myself and my husband up to set up, clean up and do everything in between. They also helped pick up garbage, watched kids bouncing around on inflatables and tackled many other little tasks that needed to be done.
My husband, Tom, was super instrumental in the days before and after Harvest Days. I can’t remember him really complaining once. And maybe if he did, I was already on to the next task and wasn’t listening.
I’m especially happy that he got to be involved in his own Harvest Days event, the rib cook-off, and even took first place! I didn’t get to eat a single rib of his, but I’m glad he had a good day.
Now, in the aftermath of it all, I hope everybody had a good time.
I have very few gripes or complaints, but I know some people thought the band was too expensive and didn’t want to pay the $15 cover charge. And as the person who wrote the check, I would confirm that the Johnny Holm Band is indeed very expensive.
But they are also a wonderful time and have a rich history in Britton. If we want to keep them coming, not to mention keep our community vibrant with fun events like Harvest Days, I would encourage you to dig a little deeper into your wallet and help us out by paying that fee.
Don’t just listen from outside the gates. Come in and join the party.
It was so much fun!
I’m not sure what next year will bring. I sincerely hope we find a great person to help us out as a director and share the load for Harvest Days. But no matter what happens, I hope you had a great time this year and will continue to support our wonderful area.
Because if I learned anything from this year, it’s that when a community comes together, it can pull off some pretty amazing things.
Even if the person in charge is losing sleep over it.
