Even with the subtraction of one day from this year’s Harbor Days week, Harbor Days 2018 was a smashing success, reports Harbor Days President and Mattapoisett Lions Club member Amy Mello.
Of course, no one likes to see Harbor Days shortened by pending bad weather, but despite Sunday’s foreboding forecast, the rest of Harbor Days showed a higher turnout and higher proceeds for all the great causes the Lions Club supports rear round.
“It was fantastic,” said Mello during a follow-up interview on Tuesday, July 24. Other than the loss of Sunday and the increasing winds as Saturday progressed, the full Harbor Days program persisted. “We did very well. Overall, we had really fantastic weather, starting with [last] Sunday’s Triathlon.”
According to Mello, each of the events held throughout the week was better attended than prior years, with more vendors than last year for the Shopping at Shipyard Park event on Sunday, July 15, and the strawberry shortcake sale on Wednesday sold more strawberry shortcakes than last year, too. The annual fish fry was a bigger success than last year as well, and sales for the U-Pick ‘Em Raffle, Mello said, were also up, raking in over $3,000 on Saturday. And the grand raffle, Mello said, “Truly was a fabulous grand raffle.”
“Overall, I think we had a fantastic week,” said Mello.
Of course, fewer people turned out for the pancake breakfast Sunday morning, but of those die-hard pancake eaters, Mello said, “I saw people getting out of their cars with their rain slickers.”
Mello said that on Saturday the Lions gave the weekend vendors the chance to opt out of Sunday ahead of the weather without the penalty of not being invited again for next year’s Harbor Days.
“We didn’t want them to feel stuck,” said Mello, although the possibility of still holding Harbor Days on Sunday persisted until the morning – that is, until it turned out only two vendors planned on opening Sunday. At that point they called it off.
The Lions usually hold a follow-up meeting at Shipyard Park once all the activity dies down to analyze the year’s events – what worked, what perhaps didn’t work – “And we usually start planning the next Harbor Days in January, and we start having our meetings and our planning,” Mello said. “I think we overall had a really good turnaround. Things went really well… I think it was great for a Mattapoisett event.
There are some Harbor Days t-shirts still left, which are light blue this year and feature a picture of the gazebo, and available to purchase for $15 by contacting Amy Mello at 508-758-4888.
By Jean Perry
