'It's a good family event': Linden Cherry festival returns on Saturday
Cherries are back in season and so is the Linden Cherry Festival.
The small town festival kicks off on Saturday, May 18 at 10 a.m. with a parade starting at Front and Market streets, according to Linden-Peters Chamber of Commerce website. The one-day festival will occur at the Linden Elementary School grounds at 18100 E. Front St. in Linden.
"We want to celebrate and promote the cherry crop that is produced in the Linden area, which is one of the major suppliers of cherries in the country if not a lot of the world," Vic Solari, president of the Linden-Peters Chamber of Commerce told The Record.
This year's theme is "Linden Cherries Salutes the U.S. Military." It is a free event for all, according to organizers.
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There will be a morning parade, a car show, fresh cherries and cherry pies for sale, a bake-off contest, and a cherry pie eating contest.
"It's small town USA, I mean that's what small towns do. They have festivals and celebrations and get-togethers," Solari said. "That's how you maintain a community, is working kind of all together on something."
'It's a good family event'
The celebration began in 1939 with the Linden Union High School Future Farmers of America (FFA) as the Linden Community Day, Solari said. The chamber took over the event in 1973 and it became what we now know as the Linden Cherry Festival.
Solari said he was involved with the event in high school when he was part of the FFA. He recounted how during his high school years there were no vendor booths or outside citizens and outside vendors and the car show, "which is a huge draw to bring people in."
He said the annual event is an opportunity for the chamber, school, and community-based organizations to fundraise.
"It's a good family event. There's stuff for the kids to do, and there's stuff for adults to do," Solari said.
Aside from cherry pies and fresh cherries, there will also be cherry ice cream, Solari said.
On Saturday, a new Linden Cherry Festival Queen was crowned, Solari said. Out of eight girls competing Elina Barbagelata, a junior at Linden High School was named the new queen.
Entertainment will also be part of the celebration with three live bands from Acoustic Measures, The Nick-Elwood Band, to the Valley Grove Band, he said.
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"If people from Stockton want to see what it's like out in the country? Come on in," Solari said.
For more information visit lindenchamber.net.
Record reporter Angelaydet Rocha covers community news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at arocha@recordnet.com or on Twitter @AngelaydetRocha. To support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Linden Cherry Festival
