It's a rarity when Govt leadership has amounted to a hill of beans. Volunteers have always made the difference in County Clay.  Such is the case with a newly formed group known as Vividly Delicious. That group started off with a bunch of folks interested in painting murals, around downtown Clay, to dress up the place. In just four months, they have expanded greatly.
  On Oct 26th, Vividly Delicious grew into a festival organizer. Their first fest offering was a Halloween themed, Spooktacular on Main Street on the old RT Sizemore lot. Think old fashion is on the way out? Wrong.
  Events held during the day long Festival included, punkin carving, face painting, scare crow building, punkin drops, bounce houses and a kids' parade. Bunches of kids and adults showed up for the fun. By Saturday evening's parade, over 200 participated.  Speaking of the parade, the highlight of the walk were the dancing witches complete with choreographed music.

   Vividly Delicious is learning as they go. For this project, they held fundraiser contests. Not sure if they made much money for future endeavors but, at least they've learned, it takes $$$ for much of anything to happen. For instance, they charged small fees for stuff like the punkin drop with the winner receiving half the take.

   Festivals do more than serve as a fun time. They bring $$$ into Clay. Normally, on a Saturday morning, downtown Clay is dead in its tracks. Vehicle traffic is next to nothing. One guy once told us, you could lay down and take a nap on the double yellow lines without fear of getting run over. Back when we were operating a live cam on Main Street, an emailer told us, he watched the cam for 15 minutes without seeing a single car go by. He said, I thought the camera was broke.
   Participating in the Spooktacular were several non profit and for profit vendors. Not sure if those folks got rich on the 26th but, it was an opportunity to bring in some hard to come by greenbacks.

  Vividly Delicious is the new kid in town. Already the results of their efforts is being felt. Before the Big Apple Fest, they went around and picked up bag after bag of trash and garbage. During the Big Apple, several people commented to us on how clean the Town looked this year. Several made public, this is the best the Town ever looked. We agree.
  It takes a bunch of dedicated volunteers to keep the initiative alive and growing. It also takes fresh young minds to keep coming up with cool stuff, ideas, to do. So far, they have surprised us all. We hope they keep it coming.
  While it looks very gloomy for the Lump Lane (hiking trail) right now, maybe that direction will turn around into something useful. If that happens, we need the Vividly Delicious group even more. If tourists show up, they need stuff to do. Vividly Delicious is that avenue for good things to happen.   A W

That's All Folks