It Runs in the Family

Volunteerism has kept the Mercer Museum’s Folk Fest going for 30 years in Doylestown, Pa.

Barbershop for Sheep: A handful of Folk Fest visitors leave several pounds lighter.

By: Amy Brummer

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John Lacy and his daughter, Jordana, bake bread at the Folk Festival oven in 1993.


   It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. In the case of the Mercer Museum’s Folk Fest in Doylestown, Pa., that notion takes on a unique twist. With more than 700 volunteers that include both whole families and individuals, the event becomes something of a community in and of itself. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, many of these people have been returning year after year and as a result have grown and aged with the festival.
   For John and Pat Lacy, who chaired the event from 1987 to 1991 and 1999 to 2000, it was their daughter, Jordana, who got them involved. Selling lemon sticks with her Brownie troop, Jordana received her first taste of Folk Fest at age 8. With her father helping to stock the booth and her mother involved in some of the organization, the family recognized that they enjoyed the event enough to return the next year. That was more than 20 years ago.
   "The only time I ever missed Folk Fest was when I graduated from college," says Jordana Lacy, now a physics teacher at Abington High School. "I think I’ve finally reached a point where I have worked everywhere."
   She went on to work in the fruit-cup stand with her parents but eventually moved on to other areas as she got older. Recounting her volunteer experiences, she names hay rides, balloons and the ice cream tent as some of her early experiences. Eventually she returned to team up with her father in the brick-oven-bread tent and, more recently, on the entertainment committee.

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Folk Festival grounds.


   This year, as an entertainment coordinator, she has the responsibility of going out to see the acts and choose those who would best reflect the philosophy of the event. For instance, this year the festival will host Charlie Zahm, a singer-songwriter who performs original and traditional Celtic and maritime songs as well as North American music from the 18th and 19th centuries. Mr. Lacy, an English teacher at William Tennant High School in Warminster, says the point of the festival is to educate people about the culture and practical aspects of that time period. It is a celebration of Henry Mercer’s commitment to collecting and preserving the tools that helped shape our economy.
   Mr. Lacy also points out the educational value for young people that stems from making a commitment to volunteerism.
   "Organization, discipline and accepting responsibility, I would say, are the real benefits," Mr. Lacy says. "It is a highly organized event and it has many opportunities for people to plug in and do different things and show some leadership. I think they get a lot out of it. Plus, it is fun, they are building something that they are running, so I think it is really the enjoyment of responsibility."
   For 17-year-old Chris Woodson, volunteering at Folk Fest has not only taught him these valuable lessons, it has inspired him to take an active role in the future of the festival. For his graduation project at Central Bucks East High School, he has designed a computer program and Web site that will allow the volunteers from the food tent to schedule their shifts online.
   Chris says that over the course of a weekend, the food tent will schedule as many as 200 volunteers as servers and cashiers, and in years past, they were all contacted by telephone. His program should make this considerably less time-consuming, and if it is successful in the food tent, it will be used for all of the volunteers in the future.
   "One of the things I realized," he says, "was that Henry Mercer collected the tools of the 18th and 19th Century, and it just kind of occurred to me how interested he would be, how amazing he would find the modern tools of the nation."
   This thoroughly realized understanding of the festival comes from not only a lifetime involvement in the event, but a continued legacy of volunteering that began with his father, Larry Woodson.
   Mr. Woodson, a lifelong Doylestown resident, began volunteering in the mid-1970s at the request of his father, who owned the pharmacy at the corner of Main and State streets. His father had to keep the pharmacy open on the weekend but wanted to contribute his support for the event.
   With the exception of a few years, Mr. Woodson, who is currently studying electrical engineering, has been an active volunteer ever since, bringing new volunteers with him as his family began to grow. He and his wife, Marie, recall bringing Chris when he was just a baby, setting him up in a little tent behind the food tent where he could take a nap. Since then, he and his brother, Alex, age 9, have been there every year.

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Folk Festival juglers.


   "It is good for all of us," says Ms. Woodson, a speech therapist for the Bucks County schools. "You spend the time together and I think that the kids saw how we ran the food tent and other areas of Folk Fest that we have done, and now Chris has sort of patterned himself after that. They are exposed to lots of different people, the people who volunteer and put on the event, crafts people who come, they have made friendships with people that they look forward to seeing every year."
   Having grown up within the community of volunteers, both Chris and Alex are well known by many of them, and this has given the Woodsons a greater sense of security when it comes to letting the boys branch out on their own.
   "They get a large amount of independence in a controlled setting," Mr. Woodson says. "They have also developed relationships with people on their own because they go off and get into what is more interesting to them and can sort of form that relationship and pursue that interest without us standing over them."
   Mr. Woodson also notes that in letting the children explore their personal interests during the festival, he is reassured they are learning as well.
   "Folk Fest is an educational program, so if you walk around and look at the craft people, they are actually demonstrating," he says. "The pewterer is out there with molten pewter and making figurines, and somebody making baskets is actually doing it so you can understand what goes into blowing glass or whatever you happen to be watching. The kids can go right up to people and talk to them, ask questions, and in some cases, when it is safe or time allows, they can actually try it."
   Both Mr. and Mrs. Woodson both say their own enthusiasm for Folk Fest and the hard work all of the volunteers put into the event has probably had the most impact on their children. Instead of seeing it as an obligation, their children see it as a tradition that they look forward to as much as Christmas.
   "The kids get a chance to have a positive impact in the community," Mrs. Woodson says. "I think the idea of volunteering for the community is really important, and they feel the same way. Not just because we say so, but because they see how it really is a benefit to the community and to themselves."
   Mr. Woodson says it teaches his children how to work with others and also shows how one person’s contribution or knowledge can be used to benefit other people.
   "It is a really good example of many people working toward a common goal that a single one of them or a few of them couldn’t pull off the way that we do as a group," Mr. Woodson says. "There is a wide range of people involved, and it is important to keep younger people coming in because it is good to have a new perspective and new energy and new ideas and thoughts about what is important and how things should continue."