Festival Celebrates All Things Fall And Apples

Yes, it's that time of the year. It's apple time in orange country.

The Palms of Sebring is back again with its annual Apple Festival, which celebrates all things apple and all things fall.

The festival runs today through Saturday, and this year is at Blough Hall at the Church of the Brethren, which is across the street from the Palms of Sebring, on the corner of Oak Avenue and South Pine Street in Sebring. The entrance is on Oak Street.

Renovations at the Palms prompted the change in venue this year, said Nancy Hawk, director of activities and volunteer services at the Palms.

The bigger space means that there's more to buy and eat.

If apple dumplings, apple jellies, apple cookies and apple butter don't get those juices going, there are table runners, place mats and knickknacks of all sorts with apple-themed decorations and more for the home decorators.

There's even a table full of Christmas goodies for your teacher. Get the apple connection?

For the uninitiated, an apple dumpling is essentially an apple encased in pie dough, baked and then swathed in a special syrup, explained Hawk.

This year, volunteers have ordered about 3,500 dumplings that were baked in the Palms' kitchen.

Volunteers and residents have also helped bake five different kinds of homemade breads, and some have stitched, sewed and crocheted some of the many crafts on display.

The festival was the brainchild of former Palms Activities Director Lester Kesselring.

Every year, he and his wife would go to Georgia and North Carolina to see the leaves change color and invariably would bump into Highlands County residents there.

"They were doing the same thing that we were," Kesselring said. "Trying to experience fall."

The Palms was looking for a fundraising event, and Kesselring figured it would be a good idea to bring the ambience of fall to Highlands County.

That was 12 years ago. Now the festival has grown bigger each year since the first year when most of the items were made by staff, residents and volunteers.

These days, many of these crafts are ordered from outside but the floral arrangements all have one man's touch.

Kesselring, who Hawk described as an interior decorator at heart, has put together all the arrangements, mostly by himself.

He's also arranged the different tables and created the Halloween/ fall centerpiece of pumpkins and a towering Fall Tree dressed in gold and brown leaves.

His muse is "all in here," Kesselring smiled, pointing to his head. "I kind of play it by ear."

The festival's hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today; 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday; and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

The festival is the major fundraising event sponsored by the Palms' activities department. All proceeds go to purchase special items to help enhance the quality of life of residents who live at the Palms.

In years past, purchases have included an aviary, a big-screen television, a player-piano, as well as special trips. The money raised is also used to pay for special entertainment and programs brought into the Palms throughout the year.

Marcel Miranda and Joan Bohrer were helping package apple cookies in sandwich bags Wednesday while aroma from apple-flavored candles meshed with the burnished gold ambience of the room.

For the northerners now living in Florida, the Apple Festival brought home some nostalgia.

"It reminds me of Northern Indiana," Bohrer said. Miranda, who is originally from Illinois, agreed.

Parking is available in the parking lot across from the Palms on Oak Avenue as well as a grass lot on Oak Avenue across from the Church of the Brethren. Additional parking is available across from the main entrance of the Palms at 725 S. Pine St. in downtown Sebring.

Call 385-0161 for more information.