Little Falls Arts & Crafts Fair Is A Community Wide Love Affair

LITTLE FALLS (WJON News) -- Downtown Little Falls will transform into a giant craft market this weekend. The 51st Annual Arts and Crafts Fair will feature over 500 vendors from 17 states.

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Little Falls Area Chamber President & CEO Purva Watten says the entire community comes together to help pull off the event. She says everyone chips in from the police and fire departments, the state patrol, community members, and even students from the area schools:

"The kids also are there making sure the people are not going, just walking on the streets, things like that, they manage traffic, they are helping out the state patrol. There's the tennis team that's helping out with the parking because we have free parking at the fairgrounds, so they're making sure that everyone's parked correctly, they're helping people find their vehicles things like that, and then you have the soccer team that goes around collecting trash."

Watten says there are so many moving parts people wouldn't even think of in order for the city to put on the fair, such as overnight security:

"Friday and Saturday night is when you'll have people walking the grounds, so you'll see golf carts that say fair security, and it's basically volunteers that are doing this, they'll go drive around, make sure everything is good."

She says they will basically start planning for next year's fair on Monday after this year's is done. Watten adds that they have 100 new vendors and 40 food venders this year and says there is always something different to see:

"There's going to be times where you are going to be like oh my goodness that's such a cool trinket that we can get, oooh that's a great, great item that I didn't even maybe think about for us but I think it will be great for the family member."

She says it is fun to see the entire community come together for the fair each year. The arts and crafts fair runs from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday in a 10 block area of downtown Little Falls.

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