Becky and Butch Durgin of Meadow Creek Farm in West Sumner drive their horse and wagon past the Androscoggin Grange in September 2017 during the Greene Village Day parade. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal file photo
GREENE — A group of determined residents have revived the town’s hallmark community celebration after a five-year pause.
Greene Village Day, the first since 2017, will begin Saturday at 7 a.m. with a community pancake breakfast at the Androscoggin Grange No. 8. Activities include a parade, cow flop bingo, a magic show, a wife-carrying contest, a chili and pie cookoff, and a firemen’s muster.
2022 Greene Village Day logo, designed by Deborah Conrad.
The breakfast is $5 per person and the cookoff has a $5 entry fee. Food, T-shirts and a community cookbook with recipes collected from local residents will be sold.
Besides that, everything else is free, said Greene Village Day committee member Julia Coady.
“We just wanted good-old fashion fun,” she said.
With too few volunteers willing to help organize, Village Day failed to materialize in 2018 and following years. Selectman John Soucy previously said committee members were just burned out.
According to Sally Herbert, a past organizer, the celebration was started in the early 2000s. The first mention of it in the Sun Journal was for a firemen’s muster in 2005.
Soucy, who is also town fire chief, asked Coady whether she might be interested in helping to spearhead the revival. Coady, who has been involved in numerous town committees since moving to Greene in 2015, agreed.
“I just really want to give back to the community,” she said. “That’s why our theme this year is Small Town Roots Back Together Again. We came up with that because of, you know, post pandemic. We wanted to get everybody back together.”
The Greene Village Day committee is comprised of Coady, Rebecca Brooke, Bre Allard, Eric Farrenkopf, Geri Valentine and Soucy, the Board of Selectmen’s representative.
Coady said it’s been a lot of work reviving the celebration with so few people. They’re hoping to pick up some more committee members to help organize Greene Village Day next year.
Mildred Furbush Rideout, a lifelong resident of Greene and a 1945 graduate of Lewiston High School, will be the grand marshal of the parade.
Locals are also invited to visit Dick Chuck’s Toot ‘n Chug Garden Railroad display at 23 Barrel Shop Road from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Greene Village Day is open to all, not just Greene residents, Coady said.
A brochure with a schedule of events can be found on the town website or at several locations around town, including the town office and library.
Greene Village Day schedule of events.
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