After a one-year break due to COVID-19, the Annual Heritage Days Festival, Mount Vernon’s biggest summer festival, will take place Friday and Saturday, July 9 and 10 with a theme of “There’s No Place Like Mount Vernon.”
The event will be hosted by the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group (CDG) in partnership with the Mount Vernon Alumni Association, the City of Mount Vernon, Kernoustie Golf Club and several other local organizations.
Highlights of the two-day festival will include fireworks, a beer-garden, street-party, carnival games, bags tournament, a parade, car show and a new feature titled the Memorial Park Family Fun Zone.
“We have a large and really creative Heritage Days committee this year,” said Joe Jennison, Director of Main Street and Marketing for the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group (CDG). “We are grateful to our two main sponsors The City of Mount Vernon and the Mount Vernon Alumni Association who are making this event possible and hope everyone will come out and celebrate with us.”
The event starts Friday, July 9, at Kernoustie Golf Club, 203 Country Club Drive SE, Mount Vernon, at 5 p.m. with a Kids Fun Run, followed by inflatables, a trackless train, a food/beer tent, a rock wall, live music, a balloon glow, and a fireworks show at dusk. Patrons are reminded that private coolers are not allowed at Kernoustie.
On Saturday, July 10, the day begins at 8 a.m. with an alumni-community breakfast at the Mount Vernon High School, followed by main events that take place in Uptown. These events include a Car Show, a parade at 11 a.m. (lineup at 10 a.m.), a bags tournament, carnival games, food vendors, a beer tent, live music and a street dance led by headliner Crazy Delicious starting at 8:30 p.m.
New this year will be the Memorial Park Family Fun Zone with a Wizard of Oz theme that offers children and families the opportunity to skip down a recreated Yellow Brick Road and meet costumed characters from the beloved book and movie.
Heritage Days is an annual Mount Vernon event that seeks to bring the community together, including a large number of MV School Alumni, and raise funds for, and awareness of, community-based organizations.
“More than any other year, I think this year we’ve all come to realize that there really is no place like Mount Vernon,” Jennison said. “We invite children of all ages to come out, come out wherever you are, click your heels together three times, and say ‘There’s No Place Like Mount Vernon’.”
A complete Heritage Days schedule is available at visitmvl.com. A food vendor application can also be found at visitmvl.com.
Sign up for the bags tournament directly with Aaron Truitt at [email protected] or through phone at 319-560-4477.