27th Annual Blueberry Festival Features Desserts, Live Entertainment, Activities

DARLINGTON, MD — For a slice of the best blueberry pie topped with vanilla ice cream, be sure and swing by the 27th Annual Blueberry Festival on July 12 at the Deer Creek Friends Meeting House in Darlington.

Hosted by the Deer Creek Friends Meeting (Quakers) congregation, the festival will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., rain or shine, at the meeting house, which is located at 1212 Main Street in Darlington. There will be free admission to the event, which features live music, children's games, corn-hole games, bracelet-making and face-painting, a white elephant sale, a silent auction, grilled hotdogs and hamburgers for sale, and, of course, home-baked blueberry pies for sale along with other kinds of homemade pies for sale, locally-grown blueberries in boxes for sale and native plants for sale. There also will be informative tables set up about beekeeping and environmental preservation.

The blueberries for sale at the festival typically are grown by Amish families, but used to be procured from an individual who ran a blueberry farm in the area. Around seven people are baking blueberry pies as the days count down to the festival, event chairperson Mary Scarborough Maccarelli told Patch.

"We also have blueberry cakes, blueberry scones - you gotta come early because they sell out soon - and blueberry muffins. We also have cookies of all kinds and chocolate stuff for sale. In all, probably about a dozen people bake goods. The ice cream we sell with the pie slices isn’t homemade, but the pies and the blueberry syrup are," she said. “Our congregation members have been baking for days. This year I think we’ll have the most pies and most blueberries we’ve ever presented.”

Local artist John Sauers will be on site displaying and selling his paintings of Harford County. Matt Kineke, guitarist and singer, will perform for the duration of the festival, Scarborough Maccarelli said.

Typically, several hundred people attend the festival, which is dependent upon the weather. Most come from Harford and Cecil counties, as well as southeast Pennsylvania.

"The festival is a blast. People have a great time buying pies, sitting under the trees, listening to the music, looking at the books and art for sale and the auction items, and generally just kicking back and having a relaxing time at the Meeting House. You can even learn about Quakerism — we have an 'Ask a Friend' table in the Meeting House," Scarborough Maccarelli told Patch.

Proceeds from the Blueberry Festival benefit local organizations such as the Darlington Volunteer Fire Company, the Hosanna School, Char-Hope Farm and others. Last year, the festival raised an estimated $6,000, all of which was awarded to area charities.