ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES FOOD EDITOR
People who know about such things will tell you that producing peach festivals can be fraught with pitfalls.
"The first year, it rained. Then, it was super hot. The next year it was cold. If the weather's off, some people won't come out," said Carl Tinsley, who's helped with the Virginia Mountain Peach Festivals since they began.
This year, favorable weather is expected for the annual event and that could mean a record turnout. Too bad there may be a shortage of peaches.
Festival chairwoman Beverly Lambert and festival stalwart Tinsley seemed serenely confident that the 40 bushels they had commitments for last week would somehow grow to the 60 needed in time for the two-day eat-a-thon this weekend at Crestar Plaza.
"We'll find them; we have to," Lambert vowed. Behind her, a group of able volunteers at Williams Memorial Baptist Church set to work peeling the first 15 bushels, just delivered from Jamison's Orchards.
"The festival has moved carefully; we've learned so much each year," Lambert said about the annual fund-raiser for the Northwest Child Development Center.
Lessons like 15 bushels is a good amount to peel in one day's time.
The first festival started out of Sweet Union Baptist Church, Tinsley said, and that year the festival planners brought in 75 bushels of peaches all at once.
"We needed a fund-raiser. We thought, `Hey, peaches!' We had no idea of the labor intensity required. We must have peeled day and night for three or four days. We learned not to get them all at once. They'll go bad," Tinsley grimaced
The first couple of festivals were so demanding of their few volunteers that the center was ready to throw in its parers, so to speak. But former Downtown Roanoke Inc. Executive Director Franklin "Kim" Kimbrough thought the idea had great potential. In 1992, the downtown leadership and support organization joined the center in producing the festival. The goal was to turn it into an event that would raise funds for the center, provide family-oriented entertainment, promote Southwest Virginia's peaches and orchard owners and increase Roanoke's marketability to businesses and tourists.
"It's a lot better with their public relations and business contacts. They know how to get the health permits and things that are needed, so it makes it much easier to comply," Lambert said.
Tinsley, who until 1995 was president of the center's board, said it had always been his dream to build a children's development center that would serve the community, particularly people with lower incomes. The 13-year-old nonprofit center on Melrose Avenue operates from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, serving up to 100 children between ages 2 to 12. Developmentally appropriate activities are designed to foster the children's self-images, respect for others and intellectual, physical, social and emotional growth. Fees are based on family size and income.
At the center on this particular morning, people were in festival-preparation mode. Children tried on the new peach costumes they'll wear while entertaining at the festival. They colored peach posters and joined the staff in singing a peach song.
"I love peaches because they make your stomach good," 5-year-old Cameron Terry declared. Desiree Wilson, 4, said she likes peaches best in ice cream. Ricarda Calloway, 4, said she prefers frozen peach treats on a stick. She'd make some, she said, except she doesn't know how to cook.
George Rogers, however, does know how to cook - or at least how to mix up the creamy peachy concoctions that have earned him the title of the festival's "milkshake king." He said he learned his skill about 50 years ago, as a kid working as a soda jerk at the now-defunct Modern Pharmacy in Northeast Roanoke, back then the area's only black-owned drugstore.
The festival has been blessed with some other good cooks, too, Tinsley said. Tuesday, in the Henry Street Music Center and Jazz Institute's kitchen, a couple of cooks from Total Action Against Poverty started cooking the festival's famous cobblers.
"And our shortcakes are made with real homemade pound cakes," Tinsley said. "They're so good, people try to buy the cakes whole."
Of course, Tinsley, Lambert and Rogers assured, calories don't count when they're for a good cause.
"We'll start working on the next festival as soon as this one's over, write down what we learned and what we want to do differently," Lambert said.
Among things they'll do differently this year?
Thursday at noon, for a minimum order of 100, teams of volunteers will go to offices and make ice cream and cobblers on site. Dessert tickets also will be sold in advance to minimize waiting time at the booths.
On the financial front, Coca-Cola will be the festival's first major corporate sponsor, and Trigon also will provide some funding, Lambert said.
MOUNTAIN PIE
PEACH ICE CREAM
CONGEALED PEACH SALAD
PEACH CAKE See microfilm for recipes.
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ROGER HART STAFF Evelyn Fizer (right) jokes withby CNBFlora Blake (blue blouse) and other Williams Memorial Baptist
Church volunteers as they peel approximately 15 bushels of peaches
for the Virginia Mountain Peach Festival. color
2. ROGER HART STAFF At the Northwest Child Development Center, adult
volunteer Mattie Rose helps 4-year-old artists Neil Brown (left)
Shantel Mayo and Waynette Johnson on a coloring project.