By Rachel Fan ’27
Over the weekend of October 7-8, local residents and visitors united on Main Street and Center Street for the 36th biannual Celebrate Wallingford event. Continuing a tradition of nearly four decades, the event featured over 150 vendors, from local artisans showcasing their work to restaurants offering mouth-watering bites.
Some notable changes from last year include an expanded kid-and-tween area, which encompassed a beach sand area, and a wine garden, which Wallingford Center Inc. Executive Director Mrs. Liz Davis explained had a “full-blown area of drinks compared to the wine tastings in previous years.”
A main attraction of this year’s Celebrate Wallingford was the Road Race, hosted by the Wallingford YMCA, which kicked off on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. Participants went on a five-kilometer walk or a one-kilometer “health walk” to support cancer and Parkinson’s disease survivors.
“Registrations [were] at an all-time high,” said Mr. Sean Doherty, Executive Director of the Wallingford YMCA, who also displayed a vendor booth to discuss their nonprofit programs.
Mr. Nicholas Imbriglio, owner of Passionately Pasta and another vendor at Celebrate Wallingford, detailed what he enjoyed most about participating in the event: “I’ve been a Wallingford resident my whole life, and this event has been indoctrinated into me, and I love seeing the community come together.”
With the ability to draw in 10,000 people in two days, Mr. Imbriglio acknowledged how the festival’s outreach encouraged his own participation as an owner of a fledgling business. He said, “I felt like the best way for my little business to get out was to participate in probably the biggest event in Wallingford during the year.”
Students who attended Celebrate Wallingford were also able to tune into Choate’s booth. Participating for the 12th year as a main vendor, the School aims to connect with the public and “answer questions, inform people about what we’re offering in terms of education, and showcase programs and events that might be of interest to the Wallingford community,” said Ms. Alison Cady, Chief Communications Officer at Choate and a board member of Wallingford Center Inc.
Throughout the weekend, Choate student volunteers at Celebrate Wallingford assisted with various tasks, such as helping Wallingford Center Inc. at their tent, putting up “no smoke” signs on the North Main Street side, and preparing flyers for distribution at Choate’s tent.
Ian Wu ’26, a volunteer on Saturday, recalled that while “the first two hours were the busiest,” the event soon settled into a fun, festive atmosphere.
The driving force behind the creation of Celebrate Wallingford was to showcase local businesses and bring the community together. The event was originally founded in the 1980s as “Taste of Wallingford,” an exclusive opportunity for restaurants to present local flavors. Gradually, it expanded to accommodate more than just taste buds and was renamed “Celebrate Wallingford” in 1987.
Mrs. Davis, who organized the event, reflected on its growth over the years: “We used to be just a small committee formed by the mayor when we first got started, but later, it got established into an actual nonprofit organization.”
With the roster of vendors changing every year, Ms. Cady said selecting this year’s vendors was a careful and precise process.
As a general criteria, the organization looks for Wallingford-based businesses offering “homemade crafts” and local dining establishments that will produce dishes they serve in their restaurants at the festival, ensuring attendees experience a genuine local flavor.
She stressed that while some vendors were brand new businesses that “just want to be out there to sell the product,” there were also established participants who “have been part of it for 20 years.”
Looking towards the future, Mrs. Davis hopes to expand the comprehensive nature of this year’s Celebrate Wallingford to host even more booths.
