LAKE COUNTY — Two events designed to boost literacy and fine art will take place Saturday and Sunday at Steele Wines in Kelseyville.
The 13th annual Steele Wines Harvest Festival will kick off the weekend activities with wine tasting, a farmers” market, homemade arts and crafts for sale and activities for children, followed by the 5K and 10K Vineyard Run for Literacy on Sunday morning.
“We”re trying to make it (the Harvest Festival) more kid-friendly. There is a lot for the adults browsing through, but we will have more for the kids to do,” organizer Naomi Key said.
Activities include grape stomping, where children and adults make wine ? or at least, grape juice ? the old-fashioned way, by stomping on a half-barrel full of grapes while a partner holds a container under a spigot. The prize is the satisfaction of knowing you have the fastest feet in at the festival.
“It”s just for fun,” Key said.
Stomping runs from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, and from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Stomp-off competitions are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
The festival opens both days at 10 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. Approximately 65 vendors will be selling hand-crafted wares including pottery, glass work, metal work, wind chimes, tie-dye clothing, purses, jewelry, soap, wood crafts, kaleidoscopes and stained glass, among others.
“Some of the artists will be demonstrating their painting during the day, we have a spinner who will be spinning yarn out of sheep wool, and another gal does beautiful art weaving on a loom, and she lets kids come up so she can demonstrate,” Keys said.
A 5K walk, a 5K run and a 10K run begin at 9 a.m. Sunday. Individual walkers and runners pay $20 to participate; the price for a family is $30. Proceeds go to benefit the Lake County Library Adult Literacy Program.
Coordinator Ginny DeVries said the program has grown, and pairs approximately 70 students with individual tutors. The program also provides group tutoring.
“There is an incredible need for it here in Lake County. We tutor all kinds of people ? people who can”t read at all, and people who are in college. To be accepted at Yuba College, you have to be able to at least read at a fifth grade level,” DeVries said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636 ext. 37.
