It was during a trip to Plant City, Fla., in April 1954 that the idea for a Mattituck Lions Club Strawberry Festival first took shape.
Three members of the fledgling club were vacationing in the Sunshine State when a friend invited them to the Florida Strawberry Festival, which by then had been a tradition for more than two decades.
On Father’s Day weekend the following year, about 1,000 guests attended the very first Strawberry Festival hosted by the Mattituck Lions. The one-day event, chaired by Lion Ed Buchak, ran from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 18, 1955.
The all-American festival, which netted $787 in proceeds, featured live music and baseball, but the real star of the day was featured under a flag-decked circus tent. That’s where festival-goers found the straw- berry shortcake, “the kind that mother used to make,” the Northport Observer reported.
In announcing the first festival, Buchak told the Mattituck Traveler-Watchman: “We hope that this fair and festival will be the first of many annual programs of this type.”
But Buchak and his fellow Lions couldn’t have possibly known just how rich a tradition it would become.
“It’s a tradition that benefits the community and I think people see how well done it is and keep coming back.”
Mike O’Donnell
This year, from Wednesday, June 15, through Sunday, June 19, the Mattituck Lions Club Strawberry Festival will return for the 67th time. In the decades since it began, the event has entertained countless Long Island residents and raised more than $1 million for local charities.
“It is really a community event, a true local event — even though people come from as far as Nassau County and New York City,” said current Strawberry Festival chairman Mike O’Donnell. “It’s a tradition that benefits the community and I think people see how well done it is and keep coming back.”
At the center of the festival, of course, are the strawberries themselves. Kids down shortcake in between spins on carnival rides, while adults sip on daiquiris as they listen to live music and explore the grounds of the park now known as Strawberry Fields.
The event has always aimed to promote the fruit, long known as a cash crop, the first real money-maker of the growing season for area farms. Today, the North Fork boasts more than a dozen u-pick fields, but it’s always been an important crop for the region. Even as far back as 1961, strawberries have brought in more than $1 million in revenue for Long Island farms, according to contemporary news reports.
Today, the crop generates more than $8.5 million statewide, ranking New York among the top 10 strawberry producers in the nation, according to Cornell University researchers.
The festival, held on the third weekend of June each year, enables visitors to add entertainment to their strawberry picking trips, while also drawing visitors who visit not just the farms but area restaurants and other businesses as well.
For the event, the strawberries are not actually grown locally; it simply wouldn’t be possible to keep up with the pure tonnage consumed through the weekend. But it is a different type of local labor that you’re purchasing when you attend, with dozens of community members showing up on the first night of the festival to hull the berries by removing the stems and cleaning the fruit. They then stick around and enjoy the rides.
Longtime Strawberry Festival volunteer Phil Centonze described hulling night in a 2016 Northforker interview, saying he doesn’t “know of any other community on Long Island where people could just walk from their home to a field with neighbors and friends to help an organization like ours put on this kind of festival for charity.”
A 2010 list of some of the dozens of organizations that have benefited from the event includes local hospitals, Special Olympics and youth sports programs.
Another tradition of the festival is the crowning of the Strawberry Queen, which has occurred each year since 1956, when then-congressman Stuyvesant Wainright led a board of judges in crowning 18-year-old Wendy Smith of New Suffolk. This year’s queen will be chosen on the afternoon of Saturday, June 18 — exactly 68 years from the date of the very first festival.
The event has grown quickly from the 1,000 people who attended the very first year to nearly double that by the festival’s 10th year. Attendance cracked 20,000 in its 20th year, the New York Times reported.
This is the second straight year the Strawberry Festival will run for five days, something O’Donnell said helps spread out the crowds steadily flowing through the parking fields.
“It worked out very well last year and that’s the plan for the future,” he said.
New this year will be a talent show planned for Thursday, the evening after hulling night. Fireworks will be held Thursday through Saturday at the end of each night. And the Strawberry Shortcake eating contest is also back on Saturday.
Here’s the complete schedule:
Wednesday, June 15
5 to 10 p.m.
Free Admission
Hulling night, carnival rides and midway open from 5 to 10 p.m. with special pricing for pay-one-price rides bracelets of $30 per person. Single ride tickets are also available.
Thursday, June 16
5 to 10 p.m.
Adults and children age 5 and over enter for $5; under 5 enter free.
Carnival rides and midway from 5 to 10 p.m. with special pricing for pay-one-price rides bracelets of $30 per person. Single ride tickets are also available. Arts and craft vendors, business exhibits, international food court, strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries and alcohol-free strawberry daiquiris will be available.
6:30 p.m.
Mattituck Lions Club Strawberry Festival Talent Show
9:30 p.m.
Fireworks show
Friday, June 17
5 to 11 p.m.
Admission is $10 per person, under 5 enter free.
Carnival rides and midway from 5 to 11 p.m. with special pricing for pay-one-price rides bracelets of $35 per person. Single ride tickets are also available. Arts and craft vendors, business exhibits, international food court, strawberry shortcake, chocolate-covered strawberries, alcohol-free strawberry daiquiris and fresh local strawberries.
6:30 p.m.
AquaCherry performs
10 p.m.
Fireworks show
Saturday, June 18
11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Admission is $10 per person, under 5 enter free.
Carnival rides from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Three different pay-one-price bracelet options for Saturday:
1) $35 pay-one-price bracelet good from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
2) 1) $40 pay-one-price bracelet good from 5 to 11 p.m.
3) $50 pay-one-price bracelet good from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Single-ride tickets are also available. Arts and craft vendors, business exhibits, international food court, strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries, alcohol-free strawberry daiquiris and fresh local strawberries.
Noon
Points East performs
4 p.m.
Announcement of Strawberry Queen
5 p.m.
World Strawberry Shortcake Eating Contest (Major League Eating)
6:30 p.m.
Dancefloor NY
10:15 p.m.
Fireworks show
Sunday, June 19
11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission is $10 per person, under 5 enter free. Dad’s enter free with paid child.
Carnival rides and midway from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with special pricing for pay-one-price rides bracelets of $35 per person. Single ride tickets are also available. Fathers ride free with paid child. Arts and craft vendors, business exhibits, international food court, strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries, alcohol-free strawberry daiquiris and fresh local strawberries.
11:30am
Nature Nick
12:30pm
Jester Jim
1:30pm
Nature Nick
2:30pm
Jester Jim
3:30pm
Nature Nick
4:30PM
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