Rockville Centre’s Little Town Business District will once again become a gathering place for families when the second-annual Little Town Fall Festival returns this weekend, featuring seasonal activities, entertainment and a new corn maze.
Hosted by the Rockville Centre Chamber of Commerce, the festival is scheduled for Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. along North Long Beach Road, between Seaman Avenue and Greystone Road. Activities are expected to include a Halloween scavenger hunt, trunk-or-treat, crafts, giveaways, live entertainment provided by the School of Rock students, and inflatable costume characters featuring students from Molloy University.
A corn maze is also among the new features planned for this year’s festival, as well as a petting zoo and fire truck provided by Rockville Centre-based Montemarano Plumbing and Heating. Those ideas grew out of the Chamber’s effort to highlight Rockville Centre’s different business districts.
“What a good event planning committee does is that they take a look at what we did to kick it off for the first time, we recap, and then we build from there a bigger and better event,” said chamber First Vice President Donna O’Reilly Einemann of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. “In Rockville Centre, our community is really young, believe it or now, and from what we’re hearing, is that they like local events.”
Another “huge hit” from last year’s event, according to Einemann, was the Halloween scavenger hunt, which allowed people to visit local shops in the area to collect items needed for the hunt.
“As families went into the businesses, we overhead some of them say, ‘I didn’t know this business was here,’ as they went in to find the scary spider and then get a nice treat,” she said.
Lisa Umansky, the Chamber’s immediate past president and owner of Polka Dot Café, said the Chamber was pleased with the community’s response to the inaugural festival.
“We were really thrilled with the support of everyone last year,” she said. “It turned out really great.”
Additional sponsors that are contributing to the festival include Nissan of Rockville Centre, The George, Gino’s Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant, Entertainment Unlimited by Ted Fass, Spring Linden, and KT Raine Designs.
“It’s nice to be a participant in this,” said chamber President Ed Asip. “Everything we do is to try to highlight the businesses of Rockville Centre. We make sure that members of the Rockville Centre Chamber of Commerce is extremely active in participating in these community events.”
The Chamber hopes the event can eventually serve as a model for similar gatherings in other parts of the village.
“This is something that the chamber's been wanting to do for a long, long time,” Umansky said. “And the decision was made to just try it out in one section of town as a test, and to reach all the business. Our goal eventually is to have these little festivals in each little section of town.”
