Hundreds turn out for annual fall festival

Hundreds celebrated the season on Oct. 11 as Deptford hosted its annual fall festival at the township-owned Andaloro Farm.

The event featured activities for kids that included a play area with hay to climb and a ball pit. Grownups could visit a beer garden and take a hayride with the whole family that featured township employees dressed in Halloween costumes.

Residents got free pumpkins; non-residents paid $5. Craft vendors were on hand, as were township officials and department representatives. The nearby Museum of American History was free for people to explore.

“Such a wonderful festival,” said resident Diane Brenner. “I do think that it gets better every year.”

“Such a great time,” resident Deb Wintling enthused.

The township also honored 2-year-old resident and cancer survivor Brody Bailey, whose struggle has led the community to rally behind him and his family. Dozens came together in June to help celebrate Brody’s cancer remission, and was honored by council last month.

Township employees and volunteers worked the festival, among them Robinson Guerra, who painted a fence that referenced the fall season, Halloween jack-o-lanterns and horror movie icons like Freddy Krueger from “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

“In previous years,” he noted, “we had these hay bales, and I would paint pumpkins on them. Little by little, I got bored doing pumpkins, so I started doing different figures. Last year was the first year we did not have the hay bales. They said, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘Let’s put some fences up and paint the fences.’ It used to be a lot more pumpkins but some of the guys have helped me.

“This year I had a guy do the one pumpkin on the end right here and the bats,” Guerra added. “The newest one I did was the Freddy Krueger. I know this is a fall fest, but Halloween comes hand in hand with fall.

“This was kind of my way of throwing in a Halloween mix into fall fest, because I’m a big Halloween guy.”