Rain doesn’t damper Lehighton heritage weekend

Saturday morning’s clear blue skies were enough to motivate anyone out of their homes and into the streets of their neighborhood. And in Lehighton, they did exactly that.

Dozens flocked to the borough’s downtown district Saturday and Sunday. Not just for its weekly farmers market, but also its annual Heritage Weekend. The celebration started with the market in Lower Park.

The Lehighton Fire Department set up a basket auction in the Municipal Building across the street. Fire engines, buses and construction vehicles lined the sides of North Second Street for the Touch-a-Truck event, where kids sat in life-size versions of their favorite toy trucks. Dave Matsinko filled the park with renditions of folk song classics.

But the excitement was short-lived. After the final truck had been parked, it started to drizzle. And not long after, that drizzle turned into a downpour.

Janice Graver, who owns an 150-acre farm in Bath with her husband, Charles, saw the clouds coming from the distance. She started packing up her grass-fed meats booth piece by piece. Before long, she was crouching under her lowered tent waiting for the rain to pass.

“We heard (thunder) and we’re like ‘oh, that’s somebody with fireworks,’ not realizing it was the thunder,” Graver said with a chuckle.

Taryn Stewart, of R.G. Stewart Family Farm, based in Saylorsburg, had a similar experience.

“It happened pretty fast,” Stewart said. “Once we started getting things together, then just like that, it started sprinkling right away.”

“It’s insane,” she added.

For a while, it seemed the rain might cut the first day of Heritage Weekend short.

But Autumn Abelovsky, secretary of the borough’s parks and recreation board, said that wasn’t an option.

“We going to try to just muscle through it,” Abelovsky said.

Abelovsky and the market vendors’ perseverance paid off.

By noon, the rain had slowed. People started hiking up North Second Street with their kids again. Vendors pushed the water off the roofs of their tents. People continued walking from booth to booth, umbrellas in hand.

And the weekend regained its focus: celebrating Lehighton’s community — both past and present.

“We want to remember our heritage, because this town really does have a large older population,” Abelovsky said. “We want them to be a part of this community, because they’re the ones that built it.”

The weekend’s itinerary boasted a long list of other activities, like a fireworks show and cakewalk on Saturday and a Sunday morning church service in the park, hosted by Bethany Wesleyan Church.

Lehighton began holding its annual heritage celebration in 2017, after commemorating the borough’s sesquicentennial anniversary.

This year, the Lehighton Borough Parks and Recreation Board partnered with the Lehighton Downtown Initiative to put on the fest.

Bambi Elsasser, events coordinator and treasurer of the Lehighton Downtown Farmers Market, hoped Heritage Weekend would not only attract people to the downtown area, but also drum up business in the borough.

“Maybe we’ll get some really good businesses on First Street to keep things moving,” Elsasser said.