Planning Has Started For 16th Holiday Festival

By Shannon Hicks

School started last week for Newtown students of all ages, which meant parents across town were able to enjoy the end of summer and the beginning of another school year. At the same time, parade planners were going through crunch week, hashing out last-minute details for the town’s 40th annual Labor Day Parade, and they were certainly looking forward to Monday afternoon, once the parade was over, to take a deep breath of relief.

But organizers for another big annual event, Newtown’s official start to the holiday season, have just started a new season of their own: Planning for the 16th Annual Holiday Festival, which will take place this year on Sunday, December 2. A kickoff meeting was held on August 27 in the old board room at C.H. Booth Library.

Lynne Brault and Nancy Obremski are handling the co-chairmanship of the festival this year, stepping into the shoes of Mary Harrington-Tomasiewicz, who co-chaired for the last two years, and Connie Huntington, who co-chaired with Mrs Tomasiewicz last year (Kim Connolly was co-chairman with Mrs Tomasiewicz in 1999).

The festival includes tours of four or five private homes on or near Main Street, each decorated for the season by local florists and/or gardeners. The six-hour event also includes an antiques show, an arts and crafts show, a Victorian Tea Room, the Festival of Trees (a silent auction event that traditionally has festival-goers bidding on decorated theme trees and wreaths), a family workshop, New England Café, musical programs, town criers, and more.

The festival is set within the Main Street/Borough district so that many people can walk between the attractions, adding to the community spirit of the event. Approximately 2,000 people attended the event last year.

The Holiday Festival is the major fundraiser for Family Counseling Center (FCC), an accredited United Way agency located at 121 Mount Pleasant Road in Newtown. The money raised through the festival helps the center provide access to affordable outpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment for individuals of all ages and families.

Many of those who are helped by FCC are unable to afford the full cost of their treatment. The largest group of people the center helps, 24 percent, earn less than $13,000 a year. FCC provides its services to residents of the greater Danbury and Southbury areas regardless of a client’s ability to pay.

“I think we are the only agency with that mission in this area,” Terry Blackmer, LCSW, the executive director of Family Counseling Center, said Monday evening. Mrs Blackmer then presented some statistics: The center assisted 576 clients in the past year, 51 percent of whom are Newtown residents. Twenty-one percent of the center’s clients are ages 18 or under, a number, Mrs Blackmer said, which has been steadily increasing in past years.

“The five most common areas we are presented with,” Mrs Blackmer said, “are depression, anxiety, acting out behavior, school problems, and parent-child conflict.”

The counseling center offers help for “normal transitions,” as Mrs Blackmer called them, from transitions such as the loss of a job, moving into a new community, or even sending a child off to college, to the more dramatic problems, such as those people can encounter upon leaving a psychiatric hospital.

The agency continues to implement new ideas and programs “that would ensure a bright future for the center,” Nancy Haas wrote in her FCC Chairman’s Report for 2001. The center continues to be a key partner in the Multi-Disciplinary Investigation Team which interviews victims of child abuse, making it a much less traumatic for the youngest victims. The center also participates, with the state, as a provider of parent-education programs to help parents in handling the stress that can come with parenthood.

“We like to say we offer one-stop-shopping at 121 Mount Pleasant Road,” Mrs Blackmer said. “We can help every member of a family.

“We are very true to our mission. Whatever comes in from the holiday festival, which is an exciting event every year, always goes right back into our community.”

Because it is a completely non-profit agency, events such as the annual holiday festival, or Family Pizza Night and Rotary Club of Newtown’s annual golf tournament, events whose profits in part are also donated to Family Counseling Center, are important for the continued success of Newtown’s leading mental health agency.

Volunteers Needed

Nancy Obremski and Lynne Brault welcomed nearly two dozen people to the holiday festival meeting last week, most of whom are prepared to lead or co-lead one of the event’s committees. But a lot of help is still needed, Mrs Obremski pointed out.

Volunteers are needed to serve on committees for each of the festival’s events; a few of the events still need committee leaders. As of last week, there were still openings for a craft show co-chair, a family workshop co-chair, Festival of Trees co-chair, New England Café co-chair, a program book ads co-chair, a sign committee co-chair, and a public relations chairman.

House captains are still needed for two of the homes on the walking tour this year, and both co-chairmen (or one chairman with very good organizational skills) are still needed for the music and dance committee. Anyone interested in serving on any of these committees should also contact the festival co-chairmen as soon as possible.

Mrs Obremski and Mrs Brault also need to hear from anyone interested in working during the day of the festival this year, perhaps as town criers, selling tickets, serving at either of the refreshment locations, leading the family workshop, or working as vendors at the antiques or arts and crafts shows. The co-chairmen can offer suggestions on where help is needed.

The next committee meeting for the holiday festival is planned for Wednesday, September 19. It will begin at 7:30 pm and will be in the old board room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street in Newtown.

For information concerning any aspect of the holiday festival, especially if interested in volunteering for the planning stages or to work during the event, contact Lynne Brault at 270-9741 or LynRonB@aol.com; or Nancy Obremski at 364-0597 or NaObrem@aol.com. The Family Counseling Center can be contacted by calling 426-8103.