On a warm Fall day, people flocked to San Domenico’s 18th annual Garden Fair. On Saturday, Oct. 7, the community of San Domenico came together to sell and buy baked goods, play games, and do fun activities. The Garden Fair is a community event that happens every October and brings people to San Domenico’s beautiful garden.
Although the Garden Fair occurs about a month into the school year, planning begins early.
“We start right when we get back from school, and all through until October, we’re working every day with classes to make the products,” Shelly Flint said, the main organizer of the Garden Fair.
Shelly Flint originally helped to start the Garden Fair and has been organizing it every year since. She feels that it is a great way to bring people to the garden and welcome new students and families to the school.
“It helps to get students down here and introduce them to natural ingredients,” Flint said. “The event brings in hundreds of people.”
Many people agree that the Garden Fair helps to bring the community of San Domenico together.
Kaia Berg-Smith, a Junior and volunteer for the Garden Fair, feels that the Garden Fair helps to connect the lower school and upper school students.
“I think that it’s really great that we’re a K through 12 school, but also that we are able to have our individual school connections,” Berg-Smith said. “I would definitely say that [The Garden Fair] really strengthens the community between the lower school and upper school kids.”
Berg-Smith has been volunteering for the Garden Fair since her freshman year. She works with her family to make and sell corn husk dolls.
The Garden Fair helps to connect students as well as families together, and strengthens the community at San Domenico.
Kim Garrison, a volunteer for the Garden Fair, has two children who are in the lower school at San Domenico and volunteered this year and last.
“The parents are building community, and then when we can bring all our kids here on the day, it just furthers that,” Kim Garrison said, a volunteer for the Garden Fair.
Garrison got inspired to volunteer for the Garden Fair in the first place because she has a garden at home.
“The garden is just kind of my thing. It’s part of our lifestyle at home,” Garrison said.
Many people apart of the San Domenico community agree that the Garden Fair brings everyone together and has helped to form the community that we know today. The Garden Fair is unique to San Domenico and helps to invite everyone down to the garden.
