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Shaver’s Creek Fall Festival, Children’s Halloween Trail offer something new

Face painting is one of the many activities for all ages at the Shaver's Creek Environmental Center's Fall Harvest Festival, being held this year from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 18 and 19. Credit: Justin Raymond / Penn State. Creative Commons

Doug Wentzel has helped organize the Children’s Halloween Trail at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center for more than 20 years, but he still manages to get excited about it.

“It’s different every year,” said Wentzel, a naturalist and program director at Shaver’s Creek, Penn State’s nature center. Wentzel oversees the Penn State students who design and run the trail, a popular feature of the annual center’s Fall Harvest Festival.

This year’s festival will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 18 and 19 About 1,500 visitors usually turn out for the annual festival, which features pumpkin carving, live music, storytelling, face painting and nature activities.

This year’s theme for the Children’s Halloween Trail is “Pennsylvania Plants and Animals have Diverse Stories to Tell.” Student trail guides will play the part of traveling storytellers and teach families about plants and animals ranging from woodpeckers to eastern hemlock to bobcats.

The (non-scary) Halloween Trail stations are developed each year by students enrolled in Recreation, Park and Tourism Management 325: Principles of Environmental Interpretation. Students also earn credits for helping organize and orchestrate the festival.

More than 100 Penn State students are involved in the festival in some way, from designing the trail stations to running carnival-type games such as pumpkin bowling or demonstrating an old-fashioned apple cider press. The two-day festival will also feature birds of prey demonstrations and local food vendors.

Festival-goers can enter pumpkin-carving and costume contests; winners will be announced each day. (Pumpkins for $2 and carving tools will be available at the festival.) There will also be a prize each day for the best fall-themed dessert entered in the Harvest Baking Challenge.

Admission to the festival, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, is free. Tickets for the Halloween Trail are $5 for children and adults, and free for ages 3 and younger. Advance purchase is recommended by calling 814-863-2000. For more information, visit http://www.ShaversCreek.org/fallfestival.

Volunteers are also invited to carve more than 250 jack-o’-lanterns that are used to decorate the Children’s Halloween Trail on the Thursday before the festival from 6 to 9 p.m. Pumpkins and spooky treats are provided.

Last Updated October 7, 2014

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