Final day of Lilac Festival highlights mental health wellness and new generations of local business
Written by Site Hub on May 22, 2023
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — The 125th Lilac Festival wrapped up Sunday with some special events dedicated to physical and mental health awareness. Spectators got to learn about and gave some local businesses time to reflect on major milestones they achieved making it through the festival.
Even though organizers of the event chose to be open every day these past two weeks, crowd sizes exceeded their expectations on any day when the weather was good.
You also got a sense of how deep-rooted the Lilac Festival is for the people of Rochester as some new local vendors have multiple generations of their family running their own stands.
For as long as she can remember, Kelly Butler came to the Lilac Festival every year to help her mom work one of the food stands. But this year her own business Ice Cream and Chill made its debut bringing unique homemade ice cream flavors for festival goers to enjoy.
“Now I get to actually get my product that I’ve worked so hard to create a name for and give it to the Rochester side of people because I’ve been mainly Buffalo and Batavia based but now, I’m introducing it to Rochester and I’m super excited,” Butler said.
Whether it was live music, unique food, and carnival rides, families were grateful the weather stayed sunny for the last day of the festival.
“It’s actually a good thing to see different people from all races and everybody is just getting along just enjoying the festival and enjoying the day,” Lilac Festival attendee Sandra Gibson said.
One main theme for the last weekend was promoting community health and wellness physically and mentally. Local vendors for this expressed the importance of never shying away from discussions on how to take care of yourself.
I just really think there’s been so much negativity or distance where we all need to come together and support each other and live with love and health and overall wellness,” Marinaro Events & Mariano Wellness Owner Danielle Mariano said. “So not just exercising and eating right, but all of them.”
Even after switching to a ten day schedule this year, festival leaders say they still noticed record setting turnout on days when the weather was beautiful.
“We have a great food selection, we have a great entertainment, this year we featured more local bands during the week than we had in the past and there’s an abundance of local music talent in Rochester,” Lilac Festival Producer Jeff Springut said.
Despite some disturbances the first night, Jeff Springut commended festival security and the partnership they have with Rochester and New York State Police keeping traffic and crowd control in order without any more incidents.
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