Grand Baldwin Festival returns for the first time in the Spring

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The Grand Baldwin Festival came back on May 21 after being delayed multiple times due to the rain.

The wait was worth it as about 70 vendors took part in the festival, which was hosted by the Community Coalition of Baldwin and celebrating the community.

David Viana, a co-chair of the event, previously said that this event would be the largest one ever since the event debuted in the fall of 2019. “We’ve been saying that this will be our grandest festival yet, because it will include the most . . . vendor spaces that we’ve ever had,” he said. The event was held at the parking lot behind the Baldwin Public Library.

“We’re very excited to have so many vendors,” Viana said in an interview a few weeks ago. “It will be a mix of food vendors, retail, clothing, accessories, housewares and jewelry. So it’s a nice, eclectic mix of different vendors from Baldwin.”

“We have a couple different performances that will be playing during the course of the festival,” Viana said. The format was similar to the two previous festivals, but this time the theme was spring instead of fall. The event was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and rained out last fall. This was the first time it was held in the spring, because the planning committee wanted to organize it again as soon as possible after the fall rainout, when it was not rescheduled.

“It’s just a very fulfilling, gratifying, wonderful feeling to see the community come out, and be excited, and patronize all of our different businesses, and just be happy about celebrating the Baldwin community,” Viana said. “We recognize that celebrating Baldwin doesn’t only mean celebrating the businesses in Baldwin or only people who live in Baldwin — we’re a community that welcomes everybody, including folks from outside our community. So for one day, we really get to celebrate all of that.”

Some of the funds raised at the festival will go toward $500 in scholarships for Baldwin High School students. And, Viana said, “We are looking to utilize a more significant portion of the funds (for) community-building projects,” which may include a community garden or some other kind of beautification work.