Fall Harvest Festival featuring the Children's Halloween Trail


October 22 and 23, 2011

Come celebrate autumn with Shaver's Creek at the Fall Harvest Festival! Enjoy great music and storytelling, fun nature activities, delicious local food for sale, and the ever-popular Children's Halloween Trail.

Visitors can enter the "non-scary" interpretive trail every ten minutes beginning at 11:00 a.m. We encourage guests to call ahead to purchase tickets for a specific time. Beginning September 14, please call Shaver's Creek at 814-863-2000, Monday through Friday, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., to purchase tickets.  

Tickets for the trail are $5 for ages 4 and older; children 3 and under are free. Attendance to the surrounding festival is FREE.

The tradition of the Shaver's Creek Children's Halloween Trail goes back nearly 20 years. The trail does not portray the typical "scariness" with which Halloween is normally associated. The Shaver's Creek Trail is truly a family event!  

Children (and their families) are led by guides to five different sites along the trail with costumed characters that help children understand the season and the cultural items we use to depict it. Children learn about natural history associated with Halloween, like why we use images of owls, spiders, corn stalks, and pumpkins during this time of year. The walk lasts about 45 minutes to one hour. The Halloween Trail stations are staffed by Penn State students from across campus who are participating as part of their capstone experience in RPTM 325: Introduction to Environmental Interpretation. The energy and creativity they bring to the stations is absolutely outstanding! Each year they create new, exciting, and activity-filled stations that cover topics such as pumpkin and jack-o'-lantern folklore, the un-scary truth behind bats and spiders, the origin of trick-or-treat, and more.

The theme for 2011 is Exploring the Night. In addition to the trail itself, Shaver's Creek comes alive throughout the weekend with the community Fall Harvest Festival that includes pumpkin carving, face painting, music, entertainment, activities, natural history programs, and great food!

Families must purchase tickets for a particular time slot to tour the trail. (Groups of up to 14 will leave every 10 minutes from 11:00 a.m. until 3:10 p.m. and will be on the trail for about 45 minutes.) The rest of the festival activities run continuously throughout Saturday and Sunday, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $5 per person for ages 4 and older. Children 3 and under are free.

Families are also invited to enter the Harvest Baking Challenge. Entries should be desserts of a fall or harvest theme, and we will be accepting entries from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 22, and 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 23. Judging and awarding prizes will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. Desserts will be rated by a panel of neutral judges based on aroma, consistency, appearance, and taste. For more details or to request an entry form, contact Marie at marietaylor@psu.edu.

Students and Volunteers: If you would like to volunteer to help us host nearly 1,000 visitors during the weekend, please email our volunteer coordinator at bjs192@psu.edu. Penn State students may sign up for a 1-credit course, RPTM 297B. View course details.

We also need help on Thursday, October 20, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. as we carve more than 100 Jack-O-Lanterns for our annual Fall Festival! We'll provide pumpkins and spooky treats for this family-friendly affair, while you provide your creative carving skills. The Jack-O-Lanterns created will be used to decorate the Children's Halloween Trail during our Fall Festival. Preregistration is appreciated by calling 814-863-2000 or 814-667-3424.