Concurrently, there will be an open house at Florence Museum
By Amy Batista, Special Writer
FLORENCE — For the second consecutive year, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 31 W. Second St., will host a community Car Show. It is set for Sept. 29.
”We are hoping for a nice crowd,” said Florence Township Council President Jerry Sandusky on Sept. 25.
”We are hoping to make this a yearly event,” Mr. Sandusky said. “This is the second one, so hopefully we can grow.”
Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday and the car show will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Proceeds from the show will benefit the church.
”We are hoping to see about 50 (to) 60 cars,” Mr. Sandusky said.
Further, “We are anticipating about four local organizations and vendors that day — which is nice,” Mr. Sandusky said. “We didn’t have that last year.”
Also on Saturday, the Florence Historical Society is hosting an open house at the Florence Museum, located at the old West Third Street firehouse, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. The public is invited to view a mixed collection of open exhibits.
Mr. Sandusky encouraged residents to visit the open house at the Florence Museum, which is located across the street.
”We are hoping that people also utilize that day and walk across our field,” Mr. Sandusky said. “We have a lot which will have cars (on display) and across from that lot is Third Street . . . the Florence Museum, and that will be open also.”
”(There will be) a lot of pictures, a lot of old documents dating back to 1850,” said Judy King, president and secretary of the Florence Historical Society on Sept. 25.
Ms. King reflected on how she became involved back in 1998.
”People tried to start this years ago in town and they couldn’t get any interest going in town and I decided I was going to do it myself, whether there was any interest or not. I was going to start collecting things because the generation that had them was dying off. And I thought, you got to start now — these people are in their 80s and 90s — and that’s when things started pouring in,” Ms. King said.
Ms. King continued, “I’ll never regret it. I think we’ve got some wonderful things in our collection.”
She noted, “There’s such a mixed collection for Florence’s history.”
Ms. King said that she is always looking for historical items and finds it exciting when unexpected artifacts arrive.
”For me, it’s the 1850 deed from the Florence City Company,” Ms. King explained in reference to her favorite item in the collection. “That is something you will never find.”
The Florence Garden Club will be selling a variety of items of homemade baked goods. All proceeds will benefit the Garden Club.
”This is something new for us,” Mary Tapper said, noting that this would was a first for the Garden Club. “(Council President) Jerry Sandusky suggested it would be a good fund-raiser for the Florence Garden Club.”
She is vice president of the Florence Garden Club and chair of the Cake Sale.
”It will be starting at approximately 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m.,” said Ms. Tapper on Tuesday.
Participants will be selling items inside the church hall.
According to Ms. Tapper, cake slices are $1.50 each, which also includes a cup of coffee; and a whole cake is roughly $8 — that cost of a full cake will also depend on its size.
”If anyone brings cookies or brownies, we will judge it on the size,” Ms. Tapper said.
There will be a variety of vendors there selling different food items.
Noteworthy, there will be hot food and snacks available for patrons of the car show.
A DJ will also be present to provide musical entertainment.
If interested in touring the Florence Museum, contact Judy King via 609-499-2405.

