ROANOKE, Va. – The Community School’s Annual Strawberry Festival returns to Elmwood Park on May 6 and 7.
This is the event’s 42nd year and will serve up thousands of homemade strawberry desserts, including its signature strawberry shortcake.
The festival benefits the Community School in Roanoke and is the organization’s only fundraiser for the year. It is completely volunteer-run and organized by parents from the school.
“The funds that we raise help to keep our tuition rates a little lower, and they add programs for our students and teachers,” said the Director of Marketing and Development for the Community School, Liz Johnson.
To prepare, volunteers spend the week leading up to the festival capping, slicing and sweetening more than 2,000 pounds of fresh strawberries by hand.
Nearly 20,000 festival-goers come out each year to this family-friendly event. There will be mouth-watering strawberry shortcakes, strawberry sundaes, strawberries and cream and decadent chocolate-dipped strawberries. Everything is homemade with real ingredients by festival volunteers.
“I look forward to seeing our volunteers work together to make shortcake and sing in the shortcake booth. It really is a community experience,” said Johnson.
The Strawberry Festival will run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.