Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 14, 1993 TAG: 9307140368
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Peaches grown in the Roanoke area will be featured at the event, which sponsors hope will attract many tourists.
Peach drinks, traditional Virginia peach desserts and a peach taste testing will be offered.
The festival also will include live music and games for children.
Douglas Waters, president of Downtown Roanoke Inc., said Tuesday that the festival combines the efforts of three organizations: Downtown Roanoke Inc., which will promote the event; a group of peach growers, especially those who sell at the City Market; and the Northwest Child Development Center, which will merge its 3-year-old peach festival into the new event.
Most profits from the festival will go to the Northwest Child Development Center.
In future years, Waters said, the festival will be marketed through Virginia Travel Guide, Southern Living, Blue Ridge Country and other regional and national travel publications.
Waters predicted that the festival will be "a high-profile event," which will highlight the peach harvest in the surrounding mountains.
Paul Grisso, spokesman for the orchardists, said the region boasts 154 peach growers who oversee 208,000 trees.
Waters noted that August is traditionally one of the busiest months for tourist visits to the historic market and downtown.
The peach festival during the first August weekend each year, he said, will maximize the city's strength in this area.
He predicted the event also will attract even more farmers to the market, adding that the extra business for farmers, restaurants and businesses downtown will increase tax revenues.
"In two or three years when this event has established itself, it will likely help to create and save several jobs on the farms where the fruit is grown and probably in the farmers' market, where the products are sold," Waters said.
Grisso said Virginia will harvest 27 million pounds of peaches this year, about 66 percent of it during the approximate time of the festival.
by CNB