The Harrison Ruritan Club has recently sponsored the The Harrison Harvest Festival on September 27; this was the first endeavor of its kind for the club.  Considering the CHS Ruriteens are affiliated with the Ruritan Club, they were asked to have a “Kid’s Zone” with activities for kids. They had corn hole, coloring, crafts, and face paintings for the kids.

Junior Makayla Paris was one of the Ruriteens at Central who helped volunteer at this year’s Harrison harvest festival.

“The Harvest festival was a small fair, held for families of the ruritan club and Harrison,” stated Paris about the meaning of the Harvest Festival.

Stacy Alexander, sponsor of the Ruriteens, was also involved with the Harrison Harvest Festival.

“Despite the rainy weather, we had a lot of kids and they seemed to enjoy it,” stated Alexander.

The rainy weather was not the only setback; advertisement and finding local vendors for the festival itself was difficult as well.

“There are plenty of course, but actually locating small business or home business owners to participate was not as simple as putting up flyers and posting on social media,” stated Donna Rast, a Ruritan Club member and former sponsor of Central’s Ruriteen club

Rast’s favorite part of the festival was just seeing it actually happen after all of the planning and effort that went into the festival. The idea of the festival did not just come out of nowhere; the idea sparked when a poster on the side of a vending machine caught Rast’s attention.

The poster reads, “Be the change.”

“One change that I personally want to see is the Highway 58/Harrison area better represented and for our community to not have to travel downtown or to Ooltewah to have fun events,” exclaimed Rast.

The CHS Ruriteens are looking forward to next year, possibly at Central.