IN MY OPINION
By Chris Bennett
Correspondent
The dedicated volunteers who run ChocolateFest are getting a free Memorial Day weekend for the first time in years.
Bil Scherrer admits he doesn’t know what he’ll do.
Scherrer is the president of the volunteer board that runs the festival, and has served in that capacity for more than 20 years.
Festival organizers announced in late March that this year’s festival will not occur. Concerns over the COVID-19 virus and public gatherings forced the issue.
The larger issue is ChocolateFest, as we know it, might be gone for good. Burlington’s moniker of “Chocolate City, USA” might also be at its end.
The City of Burlington is in the midst of an effort to re-brand itself. The end result is an initiative to focus on the trails that run through the city, and how those trails connect Burlington to other communities.
“We’ve been talking with (ChocolateFest) since, probably, around the time they had their festival in 2019,” City of Burlington administrator Carina Walters said. “We’ve been in discussion with them for almost a year.
“We’ve met with the ChocolateFest committee They are on board.”
Couple that with the press release from festival organizers, which said a community festival and not ChocolateFest will be held in 2021, and the future seems clear.
2019 might be the last year we enjoyed ChocolateFest.
“We’re looking at all options,” Scherrer said. “ChocolateFest is certainly unique. We think this might be a good thing. We can sit down for a year and really see what the community wants.”
If 2019 marked the end, I’ll be sad. It is undeniable that it is a community treasure that deserves a requiem.
Before ruminating on memories of the festival it is more important to note that organizers estimate the festival has pumped almost $3 million dollars to community non-profits since its inception in 1987.
That is more significant than me remembering The Kingston Trio playing the Topper Bowl in 1987. I marched in the first five parades – first with St. Mary’s as a grade schooler and then with the Burlington High School Marching Demons.
I disliked the festival when Echo Park served as the epicenter, and traffic would be a mess all weekend. I helped cover the move to Memorial Day weekend, and was forced to evacuate the sponsor’s gala due to severely inclement weather in 2006.
I came to enjoy it when, in 2011, I got involved running and staffing the diaper changing station, a duty I happily helped handle ever since. The festival is a well-oiled machine run by a lot of committed volunteers who donate their Memorial Day weekend, and more time prior, to the community.
Another dynamic is Nestlé’s waning involvement. This is not a criticism of the company. Scherrer pointed out Nestlé’s is the largest food company in the world, and that chocolate is barely a sliver of its product line.
Scherrer also went to great lengths to praise Nestlé’s involvement in the festival. Even though it’s been years since the company built a giant chocolate morsel and chiseled it apart and sold it, Scherrer said the company’s involvement is considerable, and appreciated.
I’m convinced one of the long-term effects of life during COVID-19 will be a lack of closure. Much of what we lose in this fire will not be found among the ashes. It is good to know that the community will have a festival to look forward to over Memorial Day weekend, 2021. It’s not that far away.
Chris Bennett is a freelance journalist who grew up along with ChocolateFest in the Burlington area and now serves as a trustee for the Village of Rochester.
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