The fourth annual Dolores Harvest Festival kicked off to a beautiful autumn morning on Saturday.
The festival has been taking shape for the past few years since beginning in 2011.
“The Dolores Chamber of Commerce started it, and they had always had something in the fall to bring people in,” said Rocky Moss, manager of the chamber.
“At first, it was basically a craft fair. The event itself has grown, and it has kind of an anchor with MORP,” Moss said. “We have seen attendance grow by about 25 percent.”
For the second year, the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project is “loosely partnered” with the festival.
“We saw the Dolores chamber was doing this harvest festival, and rather than have two different events competing, it made more sense for us to combine this, and that really helps,” said Jude Schuenemeyer, co-founder of MORP.
The festival is a time for the citizens of Dolores to get together one last time before winter sets in, according to Tonya Hainey of Madd Canners.
She has been participating in the festival since its humble beginnings.
“It started very unorganized, and there was just people that would have little tiny tables here and there and maybe five or six of us or something like that,” Hainey said.
Schuenemeyer also expressed the importance of bringing people together for the festival.
“We have done this harvest festival for a few years, and the idea is just to bring people together even if it is a year like this,” Schuenemeyer said. “Without fruit to be able to bring people together to get people thinking about orchards.
Though a late frost killed a lot of crops in Montezuma County this year, the festival went on and sold what it could.
Marilyn Volm, from Dolores was disappointed by the amount of produce but still enjoyed herself.
“We look forward to it, because there are all different kinds of booths, just like here, you got crafts, you’ve got preserves and all that.”