Over the weekend, Durango locals came out to celebrate the changing seasons at Durango Apple Days. Whether patrons enjoyed local apples, live bands among a plethora of activities, or just made an effort to support local farming, Durango Apple Days had something sweet for everyone to enjoy.
Apple Days History
The Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado coordinated and hosted the seventh annual celebration of Durango Apple Days.
Originally called Home Grown Festival, Durango Apple Days was a city created, funded, and operated project. After its first year in 2007, the Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado had decided to keep the event alive in order to help connect the people with local food, said Erin Jolly, program manager of Cooking Matters and member of Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado.
“The goal is for us to present the community with the bounty that we have here in this region,” said Celeste Greene, coordinator of this year’s Durango Apple Days.
“It’s really cool because what we want to do is spread the feeling and awareness that we have all this amazing food in our community, that we have resources, and so we’re sharing that,” Greene said.
Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado
Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado is an agency of individuals and nonprofit organizations that have come together to advocate for local food. It includes Cooking Matters, The Garden Project, CSU Extension, and Twin Buttes, Greene said.
“We all are partners, we sit at this table and come together, use all of our resources and say, ‘how can we educate and advocate for local food, not only in the Durango community or La Plata community, but to all ages and all incomes,” Greene said.
Durango Apple Days is just one of many events hosted by Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado. They also organize and host Home Grown Food Retreat, Iron Horse Chef Competitions and Tour de Farms right here in Durango, Greene said.
“The apple is a resource that we have, that’s a local foods resource that was planted here, some of them are 100 years old, we have a history here in agriculture, in La Plata County,” said Erin Jolly, program manager of Cooking Matters and member of Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado.
“We used to be pretty big apple producers actually, and have orchards, and be very steeped in agriculture”, Jolly said.
Preparations
Having a Saturday turnout of over 30 volunteers, work was seriously cut out for them with the harvest of the events apples. Coming from orchards and homes throughout the La Plata County, over 3000lbs were harvested, that’s roughly 10,000 apples, Greene said.
The event itself was solely run off of the labors of volunteers. Working apple presses, children’s activities booths, information kiosks, and preparing, and selling freshly pressed apple cider, whatever the job may have been, it was fully supported through the efforts of Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado and their terrific volunteer staff, Greene said.
The Event
The event had seen more attendees this year than any previous year. It was estimated by Greene that well over 2,000 patrons attended this year.
There were also more vendors this year than before, many of whom were concerned that the addition of new vendors would subsequently lower their sales, however, with an influx of attendees, many saw increased revenue, she said.
The main source of revenue for Durango Apple Days itself came from the sale of freshly pressed apple cider. “I would say that we sold over 200 gallons of juice, 200 to 300 gallons of juice,” Greene said. At $15 a gallon, the Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado had made enough to keep the event alive for next season, and help fund their other community projects throughout the year, Greene said.
External Links:
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Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado
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http://www.growingpartners.org/
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Cooking Matters
- http://www.cookingmatters.org/