Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 158, No. 35
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
$1.50
The Mushroom Festival: Food, fun, and entertainment in Kennett Square this weekend By Chris Barber Contributing Writer Kennett Square’s signature event, the Mushroom Festival, will return for the 39th time on Sept. 7 and 8. This celebration of Pennsylvania’s number-one agricultural crop routinely attracts upwards of 100,000 people over its two days – many of them from beyond the Pennsylvania state line and some even reported from
INSIDE
international locations. At the helm of the event this year and in recent years are longtime leaders Gina Puoci and Gale Ferranto. Puoci is a Kennett Square native who is the administrator of the Kennett Fire Company. Ferranto grew up in a mushroom-growing family and is the president of Buona Foods, which processes and packages canned mushrooms in Oxford.
The co-chairpersons said they can both look back at more mushroom festivals and they remember special features that came and went through the years. Almost 40 years ago, the Mushroom Festival began as a simple celebration that consisted of a brief parade for non-profit organizations along State Street and a coronation of the “Mushroom Queen” the night before. For many years, Kathi
Lafferty and others overPhotos by Chris Barber saw the festival and initiated attractions like The streets fill with music for the two days of the festival. a Ferris Wheel, the Friday night parade, a wine festival, a mushroom-picking contest and an art show. Remaining popular and continuing to please the visitors are the mushroomcooking contests, the vendors, a “Cute as a Button” contest, a mushroom-eating contest, growing demonstrations, Mushroom growers come to the festival to explain to Continued on Page 3A
Part Two in a two-part story
The Chester County Prison—One year after Cavalcante
visitors how the crops are grown.
FROM OUR PRESS
A look at Chester County Prison security and infrastructure improvements Unionville wins with touchdown in OT...1B
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that individuals charged with serious crimes were housed there until their trial date and then, if convicted, waited When convicted murderer there for transport to a state Danilo Cavalcante’s twofacility. week escape from Chester “Our residents were livCounty Prison ended on ing in fear because one of Sept 13, 2023, area resithe worst prisoners we’ve dents were still traumatized had, in terms of the crimes they’ve committed, managed to get out of our facility,” County Commissioner and Prison Board Chair Josh Maxwell said to a large crowd on Sept. 23, 2023, the first board meeting after the capture. “Soon after the Read Across Chesco with the new Library Passport escape, we tasked the acting Program...3B warden with putting together a plan once that situation was resolved that we can use to start earning the pubCourtesy photo Additional razor wire on the perimeter of the Chester lic trust back. It’s going to County Prison has been added. Soon, there will be a take more than a day, more than the meeting today. It’s system in place to detect any contact with the fence. By JP Phillips Contributing Writer
The Fall-Winter edition of Landenberg Life will be publishing on September 11 and will include profiles of Reiki Medium Julie Garey, New Garden Flying Field’s Jon Martin, a photo essay celebrating the Flying Field’s spectacular air show this past June, and several other stories.
going to take weeks. And then months, and then years without any incidents to earn the community’s trust.” Improvements started with a change of leadership at the top. Acting Warden Howard Holland took over from the
previous warden the day before the escape, and was appointed as the permanent warden during the April 29, 2024 board meeting. Brian Sheller was approved for the position of Deputy Warden Continued on Page 2A
Kennett Library dedicates mural as part of first-year celebration By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer There is a mural, 87 feet wide by 17 feet in height, that is clearly visible to anyone who passes by the Kennett Library on South Willow Street. It is a snapshot history lesson of Kennett Square in full and resplendent color.
Created by community mural artist Al Moretti over the past year, the mural was one of the artistic cornerstones in the development of the new, 33,425-squarefoot library, which officially opened on Aug. 27, 2023. On the one-year anniversary of that beginning, more than 100 patrons and library officials gathered on Aug.
27 to celebrate the library’s milestone and acknowledge Moretti’s work as a symbol of history and progress. Library Board President Brad Peiper told the audience that the creation of the mural was a creative response to the removal of a former mural that stood for several years on the side of a vacant building on South Willow Street
that depicted Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad movement through Kennett Square. The building was taken down during the construction of the new library, but through a proposal by library trustee Dr. Brenda Mercomes and assistance from the library’s arts committee, an effort was made to hire Moretti to rei-
magine a new mural that would commemorate not only Tubman but other key figures and attractions in the area: the mushroom industry, Longwood Gardens, the Lenape Indian legacy, equestrian life, the Latino culture and author Bayard Taylor. “The mural is an impressive and beautiful piece of Continued on Page 4A
Saving the whole life at LaMancha Animal Rescue By Gabbie Burton Contributing Writer
© 2007 The Chester County Press
by the knowledge that many deficiencies that allowed the escape to happen in the first place continued to exist. Chester County was supposed to be a safe place to live, but now many residents in the area weren’t so sure. Many were unaware
Fate may seem like an unreliable thing, but when it comes to the animal companions in our lives it is easy to feel as if they are destined to be with us, even if just for a short time. For example, just one day after visiting LaMancha Animal Rescue in Coatesville, my family happened to rescue a kitten found wandering at a golf
course who is now wandering over my keyboard as I write. This leads me to wonder that if it often feels like fate the timing of when a rescue animal enters our life, imagine how perfect it must feel for the animal? At LaMancha, the serendipity found in saving animals is seen and felt in not only the humans caring for them, but in the animals as well. LaMancha Animal Rescue
began in 2001 with saving horses and expanded its operations to include providing care for dogs, cats, goats, chickens and seemingly any other animal who may need it, who include the two cows and emu that are on site. In their 23 years of operations, LaMancha has saved over 10,000 animals. LaMancha Team Player Geoff Player said that many of their dog rescues come Continued on Page 4A
Photo by Gabbie Burton
A litter of puppies recently arrived at LaMancha.