Getting involved in pasty fest can take many forms. The event requires nearly 150 volunteer slots, and many people try their best to break the pasty-eating record; some others might even bake their pastys. This weekend, the pasty fest wants to get the community involved in more ways than one, even including the return of a home-baked pasty bake-off.
Folks can sign up online. Want to know that you’re coming. So we’re prepared. Um, but you can sign up, um, until Friday the 15th, um, this week with your pasty, have three categories, um, copper country, traditional Cornish, and non-traditional. So you can get as creative as you want. You know, there are, we think of the pasty as, you know, is pasty meat, potato, onion, maybe or maybe not carrot, depending on how big of a battle you want to get into, and rutabaga. But they do make creations like this all across the world, right? – Leah Polzin, Director, Main Street Calumet
Visit Keweenaw, Jesse Weiderhold says, the pasty-eating contest has always been well attended. And when the festival selected a different theme for the day, the tourism bureau helped introduce the pasty pull. Challenging the community to pull a truck a short distance for the strongman competition.
So the second year, we went a little lighter. We just used our boss’s truck, right? Brad Barnett from Visit Key when I volunteered at Silverado. That was too easy. Six and seven-year-olds could do it. But what we did was we figured out outside of cross country sports and Red Jacket place in Calumet on this street. It is downhill the other way. So this year we went to UPPCO and we said, you know, what do you have for us? We went to the village of Calumet. Megan so kindly offered us a sweeper. But UPPCO had a 16, 18,000-pound truck. – Jesse Wiederhold, Community Event Coordinator, Visit Keweenaw.
Volunteers make the pasty fest a fun and safe place to bring the family or meet friends for some fun. Main Street director Leah Polzin says volunteers can help with road crossing. And will even have time to pick up their pasty from one of the festival’s vendors.
We do have a crossing guard that we need at Elm Street because Elm Street is open to cross traffic, but we also have so many people showing up at Pasty Fest, which is wonderful, that we are using the full length of Fifth Street now, which has just grown and grown. And last year, we were shocked to see the number of people crossing the street. And this year, whoa, okay, we need to make sure we have really good crossing guards. Available at the intersection. Everything from traffic control to helping change garbages, make sure there’s enough paper towels at the bathroom locations. There’s a whole mix of things that need to happen. You can sign up at uppastyfest.com; all of the shifts are available. – Leah Polzin, Director, Main Street Calumet
Volunteers will receive a voucher for a free pasty during the festival. Volunteer slots work stations for a couple of hours at a time. Polzin says Pasty Fest will especially need help on Friday to set up the festival grounds on 5th Street. Pasty fest will begin Friday night, with most activities happening on Saturday, August 16th. Learn more about Pasty Fest here.
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