Reverend Debra Andrew Maconaughey from Marathon joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the Florida KeysCeltic Festival.
The festival will be held January 11 and 12 in the Marathon Community Park.
Reverend Maconaughey said, “This year we have a signature sponsor for the very first time, Isla Bella in Marathon. So we’re super happy about that. I think this is our 12th year and with COVID, we had one year where we didn’t have it, so it’s kind of messed up the counting a little bit. The festival has something for everyone. Great bands, really excellent food. We have food vendors and lots of shopping and Highland athletics, which is the original strong man’s sport, and we also have sheep herding, which you think, okay, what is sheep herding and why should I care about it? There’s a shepherd, and they show the training of the sheep, and the dogs run around and it’s really cool. It’s one of our most popular things that we offer. We have Irish and Scottish dancing. We have the traditional pipe and drums. Children get in free, and we have a bounce house, and lots of fun things for the kids, contests and prizes and and we also have the Zero K Fun Run. So, people can continue to get in shape, for those eight pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and know that they can still participate in the Zero K Fun Run and get a shirt. Everyone gets a donut at the end. It’s super fun.”
You will not want to miss this festival.
Reverend Maconaughey said, “It’s for a good cause. We have our free after school program and summer camp up here in the city of Marathon. It’s called the Hammock House, and we’ve been going for a really long time, and that festival helps to support that free program. During school breaks, we have camp. During summer, we have a huge camp with between 50 and 60 children and every day after school, we have two buildings full of kids doing their homework, having a snack, playing. They kind of start with us in kindergarten, and they’ll stay with us until fifth or sixth grade. The festival is really, really fun. It’s a great activity for the whole family, if you’re on vacation, if you’re looking for something to do, or if you simply come every year, it’s it’s really fun, but it’s for a great purpose.”
St Columba Episcopal Church is spearheading all of these efforts in the Marathon community.
Reverend Maconaughey said, “We try to really help our community. That’s part of our mission, to serve the community. So that kind of comes out of our spirituality, and the things we think about on Sundays. I’s a very energetic congregation, and very mission minded and trying to work to help families and what could be better than helping kids and their parents?”
Some of the affordable housing units that the church owns had some very severe challenges over the past year or so.”
Reverend Maconaughey said, “We definitely had a terrible time in 2023. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but what it caused was the complete repair of all four apartment buildings, and they’ve been empty since 2023 but one of the buildings is completed. So we’re getting ready now to start bringing the apartments back online. So, next week, we’re going to start advertising for residents and for the first building, anyway, we have permission for people to move in, one building at a time. The contractors already are working away on Building B, is what we call it. We just expect to roll them out, one building at a time, until we have 16 units of workforce housing back up and operating. That’s just probably the challenge of my ministry, I have to say, buying a building, and then we spent almost a million dollars renovating it the first time around, and we thought everything was fine, and people lived there for three years and then having to do the repairs for nearly another million dollars has been just, I mean, challenging, that’s not even a good word. I’m in a perpetual fundraising mode for that reconstruction. Every penny helps really, but we are really happy with our contractor. He has been just so professional and so reassuring. They worked all through the summer and that horrible heat and and so the first building looks beautiful. It’s all been painted now and I think we’re going to put the four apartments up next week. We have our policies and procedures, and I’m anxious to get people back in there and having some good affordable housing in the Keys. I think it’s unusual for a church to take on a challenge like this, and to try to to work in the community. Even though this has been very hard, I feel very happy that we have stuck with it. I would say by the end of March, April, we’re going to have all four buildings up and running.”
Sponsorships for the Celtic Festival are still available.
Reverend Maconaughey said, “People can just call the church, and believe me, I’ll answer on the first ring and the number is 305-743-6412. If a lot of people got together and just helped a little bit, if everybody helped a little bit, then we would be able to continue to fund the repairs, because it’s an ongoing fundraising adventure over here at St Columba, with this situation, right? If people are really interested, I mean, I’ll go and they can have a tour of the apartments. They’re really nice, and they’re large, they’re spacious, they’re light filled. It’s a nice place for someone to live.”
For more information on the festival, click here: https://floridakeyscelticfestival.com/