The History of Avon Winterfest

Planning is underway for the 3rd Annual Avon Winterfest! Did you know how many committees are needed: Logistics, Town Coordination, Volunteers, Decorations, Entertainment, Traffic Control, Food & Beverage - just to name a few! If you are interested in being a committee lead, volunteer, or would like to help - please email: customerservice@bottomsup.us.

We were able to bring back the spirit of the Avon Winterfest and relaunched as the Avon Snowflake Festival. We received a lot of feedback and visitors asking to change the name back to Avon Winterfest. We listened! We hope to see you this year to kick start your holiday celebrations!

Although we have tried to bring the holiday celebration of the Avon Winterfest back in 2022 and 2023, it has been very difficult to raise sponsorships and funding for such a large-scale event. 

After gaining momentum and increasing our brand awareness, we were looking to continue to revisit the potential for our 2018 concept. However, this particular year was especially hard for our founder. She lost her mother to heart disease in 2019, then COVID hit and literally shut the world down in 2020, and then, when she thought the storm was over, her dad passed away from COVID in January of 2021. Honestly, her grief was tremendous. She was broken. She needed something to help ease the pain she was feeling.  

The executive director has been known to watch Hallmark movies, especially at the holidays. Her family actually jokes about it ALL the time! Feeling very sad and grieving her losses, she turned to what made her happy - a good couch, in cozy pj's, some hot cocoa, and watching Hallmark movies. She knew that Avon resident, Julie Sherman Wolfe, a Hallmark writer in town, was releasing "Taking a Shot at Love", and she was SO ready to watch a sports-focused Hallmark movie. And then, like finding a lost piece of a puzzle you have been working on forever, there was the missing piece. The name of the fictitious winter fair on this movie was "Avon Winterfest." There it is thought the small nonprofit executive director. The name for the charming event she had envisioned back in 2018. 

A few months later, after completing the paperwork for a special event permit with the Town of Avon, she decided she needed a co-host. Someone who understood what a Christkindlemarket was about - strolling with friends and family, drinking mulled wine or hot cocoa, music, shopping, and celebrating the holiday season. She knew where to go immediately... Dom's Coffee Shop. She set a meeting with Asta and Andrew who were as enthusiastic as she was to see this event come to life. They had also thought about a similar idea in the past but didn't have the bandwidth to really make it a reality on their own.  Boy, I sure understood that! I remember going into the shop and seeing they had over 3,000 followers on their Instagram sign in the store. When we met over coffee, they were just amazing! The most caring, loving people who also wanted to bring community together. They said they would certainly spread the word; be a vendor serving the best hot cocoa and mulled wine and try to help with sponsorship opportunities. These folks are the hardest working people I know, and I am pretty certain everyone thought the Town of Avon and Dom's Coffee Shop put together Avon Winterfest. What most didn't realize is this event started out as a fundraising event for the small non-profit. 

The small non-profit executive director/Avon Winterfest fundraising event planner began a committee including herself - affectionately naming them the fab 5 (6 really including her!): Asta and Andrius Plankiene from Dom's Coffee Shop, Kerri-Lee Mayland, an NBC anchor and entrepreneur, Julie Sherman Wolfe, a Hallmark writer, and Michele O'Connor who was one of my first friends in town and has been on several boards and served in political office for Avon. We met at Dom's Coffee Shop of course, and the idea was pitched to them all. And so began the first Avon Winterfest committee meeting. The six of us together figuring how to make it happen...and we did! 

Now, the committee grew to 30 individuals, some with the most amazing sponsorship connections. I will forever be appreciative for this committee! Hallmark provided gift baskets for the drive-in giveaways during the showing of Taking a Shot at Love written by Julie Sherman Wolfe. Countless hours of hard work obtaining sponsorships, coordinating vendors and entertainers and all the setup/breakdown to pull off an event that was over $125,000. But we did it!! 

When this small non-profit executive looks back and sees the photos, she is very humbled and grateful to EVERYONE who participated - the fab 5, the Town of Avon, the sponsors, police and fire personnel, and most of all the patrons who celebrated with us over two nights and three days! The stories and comments, I will hold near and dear forever. I truly felt the love and support my parents had always provided to me through each story.

A small non-profit in Avon, CT had an idea to create a small Christkindl market near the gazebo and green. That non-profit wanted to create a fundraising event to raise money for its mission. We knew we couldn't do it alone. We asked another non-profit to partner but they felt they would not be able to handle such an endeavor. However, the small non-profit didn't give up.