A small group of women were sharing picture books and stories in the Children's Room of the Medford Library. They had loosely formed an organization called The Medford Storyelling Guild. The groups goal was to look for ways to attract more children to the library with the emphasis on children's literacy.
Children's Festival began in 1967 through the efforts of five Medford women, each of whom presented stories to children at the Medford Library every week. Founders are: Jeannette Paulson, Lois Cousineau, Jody Pfiefer, Gail Caperna, Susan Bates and the Medford Library Children's Librarian, Myra Getchell. In addition to these brave souls, others were pressed into immediate service. Jerry McDougall, Medford High School drama instructor, worked up a playlet. Terry Moore, a local teen, acted as a wandering minstrel. Gail Caperna presented a marionette show, Lois Cousineau presented the story of "Three Billy Goat's Gruff" with life sized illustrated cutouts made by Pat Blair, and Mr. McDougall's playlet, " Goldy Locks And The Three Bears" was presented on the makeshift Britt Stage which was constructed of plywood for use by Britt Music Festival.
It began simply enough as a story festival for children which would be held at Britt Gardens in Jacksonville. It would be would called "A CHILD'S AFTERNOON OF FUN AND FANTASY". They wanted to invite all the children in the area to come with their parents and have an afternoon of fun. Low cost was one of the goals so that families with very few resources could attend. The admission fee was set at .25 Cents per child. Parents got in free that summer. That first experience was exciting! They expected about 100 children and parents. Instead 200 came! They had not expected that number and had made no preparations for restrooms, water, or public address system but the children and their parents loved it and begged for more! Because the parents urged them to repeat it the NEXT day too, Jeannette scurried around, borrowed a Williams Bread Truck that had a P.A. system, rented a porta potty and brought in lemonade drinks. By the end of the second day when They had seen 300 more people, we knew that this was something that must be repeated the next year!
Immediately following that first venture the "Fab Five" and Myra Getchell called a special evaluation and planning meeting so that we could repeat an event FOR THE CHILDREN in the summer of 1967.
AAUW Concession Chair Persons, Joan Inlow and Wanda Powell
worked for at least 38 years before training their new replacements!
(Regula Pepi and Marcia Simon are the Chair Persons for 2007-2008.)
The phrase, “FOR THE CHILDREN” has continued to be the Children’s Festival mantra since that very first festival. We invited other women to join us for the next year’s festival and began working on A FESTIVAL FOR THE CHILDREN right away. We borrowed $50.00 seed money from the American Association of University Women through Jody Pfiefer, AAUW President, to start up. They have been involved since that second year! We scrounged materials and supplies and added some art activities for the children to do as well as continue to do stories, playlets and puppetry. Local businesses donated materials, AAUW provided a food booth, the Medford Library provided their printer services, etc. All this was to keep the admission cost low so that all children could come. We kept the admission fee at 25 Cents per person and that second year we had an attendance of 2000.
Britt Gardens was not a Jackson County Park then.
The Peter Britt family had donated the property to the University of Oregon. The grounds were used by permission only and the Storytelling Guild negotiated with
the then Britt Music Festival Association Director, Ron Bartlett.
The first two years , 1967 and 1968 the Children's Festival was presented after the Britt Classical Music Festival ended in late August/early September. In that way we were allowed to use the canvas canopy that was stretched over the plywood constructed bandshell/stage. There was much work to do before we could open the grounds for a Children's Festival. Weeds, debris and cast off paper cups, etc. needed to be cleared to make the eleven acre grounds usable.
There were hours and hours of raking, mowing and garbage clean up going on the week before we were to open that second year!
The Children's Festival, headed by Jeannette Paulson and her Co-Chair, Lois Cousineau, planned with the Festival Committee to decorate and use the entire eleven acres of Peter Britt's Garden. We made large papier mache animals, bugs and flowers to place around the gardens. Although we were still small the grounds needed to be inviting and exciting! We requested donated materials from several local businesses ( paper cups &a orange drink and lemonade from McDonald's, carpet sample squares to be used as sit-up-ons, etc.
The Festival was to be held in late August at the end of Britt's Classical Music Festival. Just as the committee was setting up for the festival it began to rain! Not to disappoint the children the committee quickly moved the entire festival setup to the Jacksonville Elementary School. The children and parents attended the three day event as it rained for two days straight!
That second festival drew 2,000 children.
The third, 4000. In 1972 there was a small article in Sunset Magazine which resulted in an attendance of 7000, By 1981 the Children’s Festival was attracting 15,000 visitors! (At that time the Jackson County’s Parks and Recreation program was busing in children from recreation sites throughout the county.) Today the average attendance, over the course of three days, is between 8,000 and 10,000 visitors.
As the Children's Festival grew in attendance the organizers added more fun activities for the children to "See and Do". In addition to storytelling and arts and crafts such as candle dipping, and pound the nail, in the early years there was also cow milking, horse shoeing, archery, pillow jousting, sink the armada, stilt walking, as well as a parade up the main street of Jacksonville.
Volunteers are the backbone of our organization.
Currently, it takes about 2,000 dedicated and supportive community members to make the Children’s Festival a success. We also are fortunate enough to have a variety of local donors who graciously donate funds to improve and maintain our booths and materials. The Medford Rogue Rotary has taken on the chore of set up and take down for the Festival as a community service commitment.
