Two days of fun and games, and bargains galore at St John’s Fair and Auction

Two days of fun and games, and bargains galore at St John’s Fair and Auction!

EverythingWestport.com

Sunday, August 3, 2008

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August brings hot days at the beach, chicken barbeques, all manner of fundraisers, and summer vacationers that enjoy them all. But none of these activities are quite like the annual St John the Baptist’s Parish Fair and Auction. This is one social event that has something for everyone!

Each year members and volunteers pull together one of the largest Westport church events of the season. Spread out over two days, activities included: a silent auction, Country Kitchen, entertainment, ethnic and traditional foods, quilt raffle, Grandma's Attic, New England (country) auction; did I leave anything out? Oh, right! This year added to the Fair was a children's carnival with games, events, clowns, pony rides, face painting,and Marcos the Magician! And, oh yes, the pies: there were spaghetti pies, French meat pies, chourico pies, salmon pies and chicken pies – a pie for all occasions! And of course, there were blueberry and apple pies, if you had any room left!

Each year a group of church quilters also raffle off a hand-stitched, hand-quilted, gorgeous queen-size quilt to die for!

“There’s a lot of quilting in this year’s quilt,” exclaimed Nancy Pannoni (pictured left in photo) of the women’s quilting group responsible for this year’s beauty – The Basket of Love. Lil Perry of Westport is pictured right.

A $10 chicken barbeque was held Saturday afternoon, and a pancake breakfast was held at the church hall all Sunday morning. If you miss these church-sponsored chicken barbeques, you’re not stretching your food dollars!

The Fair also brought us Marcos the Magician, a class magic show for kids of all ages. For one hour before the chicken barbeque, Marcos kept a very large crowd spellbound with his wry humor, lively animation, and quality magic acts. His routine with a water-filled vase and a pretty red-haired volunteer will, as his business card says, “create memories that will last a lifetime!”

From left to right: (1) Kaitlyn Warren of Westport, 3-years-old, gets a butterfly; (2) Grandma’s Attic got emptied over the weekend; and (3) chicken barbeque despite the afternoon’s thunderstorm.

From left to right: (1) Raffle basket volunteer John Souza of Tiverton, parish member; (2) Lil Perry of Westport dishing out rice and grapenut puddings. “It’s very good,” she said; (3) Marcos the magician had this girl’s attention; (4) Sisters Marla Sohegan (left) and Melissa Grew with daughter Bridget Grew, age 6.

“The whole fair is a family tradition,” said Marla Sohegan. “It’s wonderful!”

Handling the country auction “can bidding” was Janice Noiseux of Westport. “There are a lot of tickets to be filled out,” she said. In this style of auction you buy a number of tickets, priced by the quantity, anywhere from $1 to $20.You drop a ticket into an item’s auction can, which is used later to draw a ticket from to determine the winner. There are so many auction items, each with its own auction can, the odds are that you will win something, if not the item you really want!

For more information call Pat Condon at (508) 636-8912, or email her at: pmcondon@aol.com

Jessica Dopheide, 13, and Brianna Lambert, 12, supervised the pony rides.

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