Becky and Butch Durgin of Meadow Creek Farm in West Sumner drive their horse and buggy past the Androscoggin Grange in September 2017 during the Village Greene Day parade. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal file photo
GREENE – A group of determined residents have revived the town’s community festival after a five-year hiatus.
Greene Village Day, the first since 2017, will begin Saturday at 7 a.m. with a community pancake breakfast at Androscoggin Grange No. 8. Activities include a parade, cow bingo, a magic show, a wife-carrying contest, a barbecue and pie cook-off, and a firefighter’s rally.
Greene Village Day 2022 logo, designed by Deborah Conrad.
Breakfast is $5 per person and the cookout has a $5 entry fee. Food, t-shirts and a community cookbook with recipes collected by local residents will be for sale.
Other than that, everything else is free, Greene Village Day committee member Julia Coady said.
“We just wanted good old-fashioned fun,” she said.
With too few volunteers willing to help organize, Village Day failed to materialize in 2018 and subsequent years. Selectman John Soucy previously said committee members were just burned out.
According to Sally Herbert, a past organizer, the celebration began in the early 2000s. The first mention of it in the Sun Journal was for a firefighter gathering in 2005.
Soucy, who is also the city’s fire chief, asked Coady if she might be interested in helping lead the revival. Coady, who has been involved in numerous city committees since moving to Greene in 2015, agreed.
“I just want to give back to the community,” she said. “That’s why our theme this year is Small Town Roots Back Together Again. We came up with this because, you know, after the pandemic. We wanted to bring them all together.”
The Greene Village Day Committee consists of Coady, Rebecca Brooke, Bre Allard, Eric Farrenkopf, Geri Valentine and Soucy, the Board of Selectmen representative.
Coady said it’s been a lot of work to revive the party with so few people. They hope to get a few more committee members to help organize Village Greene Day next year.
Mildred Furbush Rideout, a lifelong resident of Greene and a 1945 graduate of Lewiston High School, will be the parade’s grand marshal.
Locals are also invited to visit the Dick Chuck’s Toot ‘n Chug Garden Railroad exhibit at 23 Barrel Shop Road from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Greene Village Day is open to everyone, not just Greene residents, Coady said.
A brochure with the schedule of events can be found on the city’s website or at several locations around the city, including the city office and library.
Village Greene Day Event Schedule.
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