Roaring start to Cranberry festival on Thursday
CRANBERRY TWP — Crowds of local residents and visitors gathered under clear evening skies in Cranberry Township Community Park to mark the first day of the annual Community Days festival.
The three-day family-friendly event is managed by Cranberry Township Community Chest. The festival gathers its proceeds for an annual fundraising project, with this year’s festival funds benefiting the renovation of the Kids Castle playground.
Susan Hoolahan, who is president of UPMC Passavant McCandless and Cranberry, spoke on behalf of UPMC — the Community Days event’s lead sponsor — at opening ceremonies to start the festival.
“We’ve been the sponsor for the past twelve years, and it’s really important to us,” Hoolahan said. “I feel like it’s a great way to give back to the community, and we certainly are really here to try and support all of the healthcare needs. There’s so many young families moving into this area, and we really try to tailor our services to really meet their needs.”
The number of visitors to Community Days already is anticipated to exceed past years, Cranberry township supervisor Mike Manipole said.
“The parking is filled, and that’s so uncommon for the first night,” Manipole said. “We’ve been marred with bad weather the first night for years, but this year it’s beautiful.”
Even over the past week, numbers of planned attendees have jumped, he added.
“We’re expecting between 40,000 and 45,000 people this year. We’ve noticed things that people register for, the numbers just exploded over the past week,” Manipole said. “We have the 5K race this Saturday, and usually it draws about 130 participants. We’re over 200 already, and a lot of those are sign-ups the day of (the event).”
The festival is back in a larger capacity than last year, with more than 200 vendor booths available.
“Getting here as a community has been great — it’s been a lot of fun,” Manipole said. “Out of all the people here, everyone says hello to you, and everyone waves. That’s what this whole thing is about.”
For a number of families, this year’s Community Days was their first time returning to the festival since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We haven’t been here in probably five or six years, and it’s much bigger than we remember it being last time,” said Erika Maddamma of Mars, who brought her two children to the festival. “It’s really awesome. We’ve already rode most of the rides, and now we’re getting dinner, and there will of course be some kind of special dessert treat.”
At a Cranberry Public Library Booth, library development and communications manager Jon Clendaniel showed off remote-control robots that kids can steer to paint.
“We’ve come in the past a couple of years ago,” said Carli Silvestri, whose son, Lucas, 7, played with the painting robots. “We’ve lived in Cranberry for probably 10 years now, so we’ve been coming.”
Silvestri said her kids were most excited to check out the carnival rides.
Some families plan to attend the festival on multiple days. Rachel Fleming of Freedom plans to check out the festival again on Saturday.
“The littlest one and my husband have been here before, but me and my oldest, we are joining them this year,” she said.
Friday will see booths at the festival opening from 4 to 11 p.m. The Cranberry CUP Home Run Derby will take place at Field 4 from 4 to 6:30 p.m., raising funds for the Cranberry Community Uniting People’s fund for local families experiencing financial or medical hardships.
A “Battle of the Badges” sand volleyball tournament between township first responders will take place at 7 p.m. Friday. Franchise Band and BB Steal will perform from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and 8:15 to 9:45 p.m., respectively.
The festival’s busiest day is Saturday, which begins at 7:30 a.m. with the Community Chase 5K Walk/Run, and the Lions Club Pancake & Sausage Breakfast and Cornhole Skills Challenge at Jaycees Shelter from 8 to 11 a.m.
Booths will be open from 1 to 11 p.m., with live music from The Fabulous Gunslingers from 1 to 2:30 p.m., TKO – Top 40 Rock & Pop from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m., Pixelated – Premier 90s/00s Rock from 5:30 to 7 p.m., and NOMaD from 8 to 9:30 p.m.
Sunrise Rotary will hold a bingo competition at the Jaycees Shelter from 5 to 9 p.m., and the evening will finish with Zambelli fireworks at 9:45 p.m.
