Music, food, and fun filled in Caledonia for the city’s annual fall festival

Hundreds from the area gathered at Ola J Pickett Park in Caledonia for a two decade old tradition in the city.

CALEDONIA, Miss. (WCBI) – Music, food, and fun filled Ola J Pickett Park in Caledonia for the city’s annual fall festival.

Ms. Judy Pounders is a long-standing vendor at Caledonia Days.

“I did it the first year we had Caledonia Days, so I guess that’s 19 years,” Pounders said.

She says the profits aren’t just for herself and her husband.

“This is my Christmas money,” Pounders said. “So I have my children that work the stand with me and my church and we use that money then to buy their Christmas. So if they work hard, they get a good Christmas present and if they don’t, they get under the table.”

Kristian Tate is a chairperson for the News Salem Baptist Church community outreach committee.

Tate says the church participates in the festival to serve others in anyway it can.

“Our mission is to love others, love God, and serve the community,” Tate said. “And that’s what we’re doing here today. Our preacher brings his tractor and a hayride. The parking lot is so far away so what we’re doing is we have the opportunity to reach out to our community by allowing them to ride on the hayride for free. We have free water. We also have a free craft for the children. We’re giving that out to them.”

Tate says there’s no better time to get feedback from the community than at Caledonia Days.

“We set up two boxes here and we want to know how we can love on our community and the best way to do that is to get advice from them,” Tate said. “And so we set out little tabs of paper and pens and we wanna know what we can do and how we can reach others. And we also have another box for prayer needs. Sometimes they’re unspoken. Sometimes they’re detailed but what we want to do is take those back to our churches. And we’re gonna pray over these requests.”

For 24/7 news and updates, follow us on Facebook and Twitter