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Published on 09/18/1995 All articles from this issue

Harvest Festival leaves crowded Hidden Villa for Palo Alto site

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After 28 years at Hidden Villa Ranch in Los Altos Hills, the Harvest Festival is moving to Palo Alto.

This year's event is being held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 30 at Palo Alto Friends Meeting house and grounds, 957 Colorado Ave., in Palo Alto.

At Hidden Villa, the Harvest Festival became too big and too expensive said Helen Currier, one of the original founders of the Harvest Festival in 1966.

"We had to move," she said, "to keep the best of the festival alive. In the early years there was no admission charge. You could drive your car to the ranch and park there and it was run by volunteers who loved and enjoyed the event and wanted to raise money to benefit the Friends Committee on Legislation of California."

The Harvest Festival became one of the best-known and well-attended festivals in the Bay Area with people coming from as far away as Monterey, Santa Rosa and Sacramento.

After several years, organizers said the parking began to damage the fields at Hidden Villa so it became necessary to pay for parking miles away at Foothill College and hire a costly all-day fleet of buses to carry the people back and forth from the parking lot to the festival.

These and other increased costs forced organizers to charge admission. Last year, the Harvest Festival became so huge and complex that volunteers shied away from working the festival.

This year, the festival will be free.

"More importantly," said volunteer coordinator Nancy Samelson, "the festival will include most of the special people and events that made the festival such a friendly, family-oriented affair for the past 28 years.