Little Valley Community Day is set for Saturday, June 21, when all of Main Street will be shut down for a day full of festivities. There will be craft and food vendors, food trucks, activities for the kids, a Duck Drop, demonstrations by the fire department and live music.

LITTLE VALLEY — Good, old-fashioned family fun awaits residents when “Little Valley Community Day” fills Main Street with vendors, live music and children’s activities from 1–9 p.m.

Sponsored by The Friends of Little Valley and the Little Valley Volunteer Fire Department, Community Day is a free event that will provide enjoyment for all ages.

The day will feature approximately 40 craft vendors and a number of food vendors offering carnival-style food, including kettle corn, cotton candy and lemonade. Three food trucks will offer ice cream, desserts and donuts. Cannon’s Backwoods Brew of Otto is bringing its craft brews.

Connor Hellwig, president of the Friends group, said Bear Brick and Hughes Hotel will offer specials in addition to their typical menus that will be available for ordering. He said tables and chairs will be set up for food and dining. People will be able to carry out food and beverages that they order from the restaurants.

Kids will have plenty of activities to enjoy, including a balloon artist, face painting and yard games. Corn hole, giant Jenga, tic-tac-toe and large connect four will be sprinkled about the family area. There will also be three bounce houses.

A highlight of the day will be the “Paint the Street” event, sponsored by a local painter. Hellwig said sidewalk chalk will be out for the kids to paint a section of Main Street to make a mural to represent Little Valley.

“The mural activity will be going on all day. We’ll have a section of the street available and chalk will be there so people can draw whatever they want and sign their name,” he said. “That section of Main Street will be painted until Mother Nature decides to rinse it away on us.”

Hellwig said the fire department will be doing a Duck Derby down Little Valley Creek. Sponsored by Crosby’s convenience store, there will be two waves of the derby — one at 3 p.m. and another at 6 o’clock.

“They’ll be dropping the ducks off the bridge, between Main Street and the library; they will be picked up behind the town buildings off Third Street,” he said. “I think the fire department is charging a dollar a duck, with all proceeds going towards support of the department. The winners of the derby will get a Crosby’s gift card.”

Hellwig said the fire department will have a tent set up where they’ll be doing a “Smash-a-Car” event. At the end of the day, the firefighters will do a “Jaws of Life” demonstration.

There will be lots of live music entertainment throughout the day from three bands. Hellwig said local artist Scott MacCallum and Catastrophic will perform from 1–3 p.m. on one end of Main Street. Ten Pound Hammer, a Pennsylvania band, will play on the opposite end of the street from 3–6 p.m. From 6–9 p.m., local artist Iron Eyes Maybee will close out the day.

THE FRIENDS OF Little Valley was created in 2022. Hellwig said when the group was founded, they wanted to not only do events but enhance communications in Little Valley, which they have accomplished with their Little Valley Happenings newsletter and Facebook page. They have been striving to make their town more of a neighborhood and give Little Valley a better community feel.

“It wasn’t so much event-focused as it was more of a camaraderie — ‘let’s get everybody pulling the ship towards the same destination,’ kind of a thing,” he said. “We’re getting established and people know we exist now, so free events like this are all the better and we are looking forward to it.”

According to Hellwig, this is not the first year that Little Valley has hosted this kind of event. He said another group held something similar a decade or so ago. He said, like a lot of things, it didn’t last because it was hard to keep going.

Hellwig said bringing this event back to that level looks a little different than what it was back then. He said that it was mainly music-focused, but now they are trying to create a kind of Old Home Day, like what every town used to do.

“We’re excited about Community Day, and we have plenty more to go in the future, so this is kind of a summer kick-off, and we’re also going to have a summer wind-down event after fair season is over,” he said.

Hellwig said Main Street will be shut down from the intersection of routes 353 and 242 past Court Street and down to where the former Brooks Market was located at the east end of Main Street.

Community Day will be held rain or shine. In the event of inclement weather, the backup is to relocate the festivities to the fire hall on Third Street. More details about the event can be found on the “Little Valley Happenings” Facebook page or by emailing littlevalleyhappenings@gmail.com.