Reverend Debra Maconaghey with the Celtic Festival joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the festival.
The Celtic Festival will be held this weekend in Marathon Community Park, featuring Celtic rock and traditional music.
Maconaghey said, “The whole weekend is free for children 12 and under, and so we have fabulous children’s glen, where we have free pony rides a petting zoo. I think we have four bounce houses this year, lots of activities for the kids, and we have, of course, our sheep herding, great food, tons and tons of vendors, fabulous weather, and all for the really good cause of the Hammock House, which is our free after school and summer camp program. We really work hard on it all year round to try to kind of capture the Florida Keys vibe in addition to the festival. So we have this new program called try it, if people have been to the festival before, they know about this instrument called a didgeridoo. I have a really great authentic tea in our tea garden. We have all kinds of pub beverages. We have tons and tons of food vendors. Guinness is one of our big sponsors this year.”
Hammock House is a great cause for the festival.
Maconaghey said, “Every day our van makes two trips to Stanley Switlik, picks up the kids after school for snack, a little homework and lots of play time. We visit the library in Marathon, which is kind of an incredible library, if you haven’t been there, pretty fabulous library and and then on Fridays, we go to the to the community park, the Rotary Park, and the kids get to play. So that’s our weekly schedule. It is very standard, it’s kind of pick up, eat a snack, do your homework, play. We operate a standard camp, recreation, athletic, snacks, camp games, camp singing. We have a six week, it’s all free summer program for the kids. We start at grade K, and we go up with our campers through grade five, and then once the campers reach grade five, if they want to, they can become assistant junior counselors, and then they kind of work their way up through, junior counselor, counselor. Then we have a lot of kids that come back from college, and they’re our senior staff. We have teachers that help us out with the summer, and if there’s a school break, we have a camp. So we just finished our Thanksgiving camp. We just finished the Christmas camp. We have a lot of fun doing it, and it’s a really creative project. You hear about the need for child care and the cost of childcare and I do feel like we’re doing it, and it’s free.”
For more information on the festival, click here: https://floridakeyscelticfestival.com