By John Kline
The Old Bag Factory is 25 years old, and it’s time for a little celebration.
To highlight this milestone, the artists and merchants of the historic venue will kick off a weeklong 25th anniversary celebration Saturday with a host of activities aimed at featuring the best the Old Bag Factory has to offer.
“It’s hard to believe its been 25 years already,” said Larion Swartzendruber, who founded the Old Bag Factory with his wife Nancy back in 1984 from the ruins of the abandoned Chase Bag Factory. “It actually seems like it’s gone by pretty fast. Just this past week as we were preparing for the celebration, we were reviewing the photos from when we first started building, and it was fairly overwhelming to look back and see what we started with and how far we’ve come.”
According to Ruth Smucker, sales assistant with Swartzendruber Hardwood Creations, the festivities will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday at The Old Bag Factory, 1100 Chicago Ave., Goshen, and run until 5 p.m.
Discounts will be offered on items at a number of the shops, “and we’ll also be having an open reception at around 10 a.m. with a cake cutting,” Smucker said. “We’ll also have many of the factory’s resident artists doing demonstrations, and we’ll have historical tours lead by Mr. Swartzendruber that will be held throughout the day.”
And for those interested in learning a bit more of the history of the Old Bag Factory, a detailed PowerPoint presentation will be running continuously during the celebration showing a pictorial timeline of the venue from its earliest stages to the final product now 25 years in the making.
“And of course we’ll have food and live folk music,” Smucker said, “and for the kids we’ll have a special bag decorating contest, and one of our Renaissance re-enactors will be on hand in the main building for their entertainment.”
As an added treat, Smucker noted, the celebration also coincides with the 2009 Goshen Open Studio Tour, a self-guided tour of Goshen’s many art studios and galleries which kicks off today from 5 to 9 p.m. and continues Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Since the celebration coincides with the Goshen Open Studio Tour, we’ll also be open from 5 to 9 p.m. (today),” Smucker said. “There will be refreshments served at the various shops, and people will be able to interact with the artists and view their most recent work.”
In addition to the festivities today and Saturday, several of the celebration’s events will continue into next weekend, one of which is a food drive headed by Carol Lee of Lees Fine Art Photography.
“Basically our goal with the food drive is to collect 25 bags of food that will then be donated to The Window in Goshen,” Lee said. “It will be done kind of on an honor system, where if people bring in food, they can enter their name and contact information into a drawing, and then at the end of the week we’ll draw names from those submissions for prizes.”
According to Lee, the grand prize winner will receive a large gift basket containing items from all the different Bag Factory merchants, while two $25 gift certificates will also be available for the second and third names drawn.
“The food drive starts this Saturday and runs during normal business hours,” Lee said. “We’re closed on Sunday, but then we open up again on Monday and it runs until the 13th.”
Lee said the decision to hold the food drive came about with the help of the other Bag Factory merchants and artists who were looking for a way to give back to the community that has supported them so strongly over the years.
“We really wanted to do something to give back to the community that supports us,” Lee said. “As artists, we depend on the community to come in and shop, and we want to give something back. And The Window is just such a wonderful organization. We thought it would be a great idea to have them as the focus of the food drive.”
Nonperishable items requested for the drive include: canned fruits; canned vegetables; canned soups; crackers; cereal; spaghetti sauce; canned meats; pastas; diapers — especially sizes three and above; and toiletries of all kinds.
“I’ll have a table with bags set up in the main entranceway, and we’ll leave the bags out throughout the week,” Lee said. “In the end I’m just really hopeful that we get a lot of people to bring in food, because I know right now that The Window is really in need of some help, especially in these hard economic times.”
For more information on the Old Bag Factory’s 25 Anniversary Celebration, contact Ruth Smucker at 534-2502, or Carol Lee at 534-9000. Information can also be accessed by visiting the venue Web site at www.oldbagfactory.com.
