PERU — As it does every year, Peru’s famous St. Augustine’s Applefest is back this weekend to help close out summer and usher in fall.
The long-time North Country tradition, now in its 47th year, will have festivities people of all ages can enjoy Saturday, Sept. 20, including the community parade, craft fair, food treats, live music, chicken BBQ, games and raffles.
Activities at St. Augustine’s Parish Center, located at 3030 Main St. in Peru, begin at 10:30 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m.
Attendees can explore the grounds and take advantage of the Grand Raffle, a massive craft fair, apple fritters, fried dough, caramelized apples, hot dogs, Michigans, sweet sausages, burgers, chicken BBQ, games, a train ride, face painting, a bounce house and performances by the Pipes and Drums of Plattsburgh and the On Three Band. Roger’s House and St. Vincent DePaul will also host sales throughout the day.
Applefest board chair John Ryan said they were able to add Penelope the Clown, who’s going to be making and giving out free balloons to kids, to the day’s events as well.
PARADE
The big event of the day is the community parade, which starts at 11 a.m., and proceeds down Main Street from Peru Elementary School.
Ryan said this year’s parade grand marshals are Barbara Eamer and Mary Nisoff.
“For 15 years, they’ve partnered to make our Applefest basket raffle an ultra success. It’s like a Chinese auction where you buy tickets and then stick the tickets in baskets. It’s amazing,” he said.
“They really do make them (the baskets) beautiful. It’s the best one I’ve ever seen, and it’s almost possible to walk by. Plus, they visit over 100 local businesses every year, soliciting donations … so they’re very involved and they’re all also extremely active in the Parish, active in the Catholic daughters, and received awards over the years … we’re happy to make them grand marshals.”
Ryan said putting on the Applefest annually takes a “huge amount of work.”
“It takes about 120 volunteers to put this show on,” he said.
“We started meeting in April — a committee of about nine people — and we meet every month and share ideas and try to make it all come together.”
HISTORY
Ryan said Applefest began as a way to support the St. Augustine’s Catholic School 47 years ago up until it closed in 2006. He said many of the games and ideas they use today began back then.
“In fact, this year we’re bringing back one game, tic-tac-toe, which I’m sure was one of the original games. Every year we reintroduce games,” he said.
“So Applefest started then as a fundraiser for St. Augustine’s School, and kept going all these years.”
Since the school closed, the building was turned into the St. Augustine’s Parish Center. In June, the Parish Center announced it was starting to transition into the North Country Community Disaster Hub to serve that purpose as well. Money made from Applefest now supports that, Ryan said.
“It’s turned into a huge community resource that we want to preserve and fund. So the AppleFest is important to the Parish to help pay the cost of maintaining that building,” he said.
Ryan, who hopes to step away from his leadership role next year, said it’s important Applefest stays a North Country tradition. That starts with hopefully bringing in younger parishioners to chair committees in the future, he said.
“I think the big thing is the community coming together, getting kids from Seton Catholic involved, Peru Central,” he said.
“Right now, we have three ladies, who are far younger than my wife, Jean and I, chairing the games and recruiting personnel, and that’s been a big lift off our backs, and I’ll be passing over leadership … as chairman to hopefully one of them next year.”