A Big BBG Thank You to All Who Made Harvest Festival 2025 Possible!

I am tremendously grateful to our community for ensuring that Berkshire Botanical Garden's biggest and longest-running community event can take place on our beautiful grounds every October. This year, we were happy to have cooperating fall weather that really brought out the Festival crowds. 

Harvest Festival 2025 featured more than 80 food, craft, and community vendors (including many first timers!). We showcased some familiar traditions, including hay and pony rides, live entertainment on two stages, our expanded bulb sale, and our famous hay jump. New this year: our fun Scarecrow Walk that featured entries from local schools and local businesses, and a wonderful petting zoo. Most importantly, we welcomed upwards of 10,000 visitors who came to celebrate the season and all that makes the Berkshires so special!

I would like to take a moment to thank all those who helped us put on the granddaddy of all fall fairs. And in case you needed a reminder: BBG's Harvest Festival has been a Berkshire tradition since 1935!

Thank You to Our Major Sponsors

This year’s major sponsors are an expanding group of wonderful community businesses who provided much-appreciated financial and in-kind support, and we are truly grateful.

Presenting Sponsor:

Blue Q

Event Sponsors:

Bartlett Tree Experts

Berkshire Bank

Element Lenox Berkshires

In-Kind Support:

Berkshire Food Co-op

Berkshire Green Septic

Coco's Candy Shop

The Falls Village Inn

The Green Redeem

Lime Rock Park

Loeb's Food Town

MassDOT

Meadow Farm Equipment

Naumkeag

The Red Lion Inn

Rob Alberti Event Services

Sandisfield Orchard

Six Flags New England

Taft Farms

Tommy's Compost Service

Tom's Toys

Thank You to our BBG Staff

A huge thank you goes to the staff at Berkshire Botanical Garden. With energy, dedication and good cheer, this group of Garden professionals excels at teamwork and problem solving. I am so proud to work with them throughout the year, but especially during the planning stages of Harvest Festival! 

River Begas

Felix Carroll

Arielle Coon

QunLi Fan

Ruth Hanavan

Kevin Johnson

Chris Kupernik

Margaret Leahy

Kessa McEwen

Sean McKenney

Ann Millet Ozawa

Jennifer Patton

Ryan Richardson

Krissy Romano

Eric Ruquist

Lucy Tabacco

Shannon Welch

Allie Woodard

In addition to our regular staff members, I also wanted to give a shout out to:

Sam Barcenas

Emmanuel Brown

Fionn Hanavan

Phineas Wheeler

... for stepping in when we most needed some more boots on the BBG grounds!

Thank You to our Board of Trustees

I would also like to thank the members of BBG’s Board of Trustees, who clearly are one of the hardest working nonprofit boards in the region. Our trustees (and their families) volunteer their time and energy in so many ways, and we are indebted to their ongoing enthusiasm. Our thanks and appreciation go to:

Adegboyega Adefope

Nicholas Arienti

Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo

Adaline Frelinghuysen

Lauretta Harris

Nancy Hickey

Madeline and Ian Hooper

Tom Ingersoll

Jane Iredale

Daniel Kasper

Scott Lambert

Matthew Larkin

Janet Laudenslager

Joanna Miller

Jenna O'Brien

Linda O'Connell

Ramelle Pulitzer

John Spellman

Mark Walker

K.K. Zutter

And last but not least ...

An enormous thank you goes to our 177 volunteers who helped us before, during, and after this Harvest Festival weekend! These volunteers jumped in to help everywhere, whether at the kids’ activities, at an admissions table, or in our botanical bakery. BBG volunteers do it all! As always, our wonderful BBG Volunteer Association, led by BBG Trustee Lauretta Harris and Volunteer Manager River Begas, helped us maintain the highest level of volunteer engagement and excitement. Thank you all!  

To all who played roles both big and small at this year’s Harvest Festival, we know we cannot thank each of you individually, but want to highlight some of those who went the extra mile to make it all happen:

Berkshire Hills National Honor Society, Catherine Bohrman, Cathy Clark, Julie Hammill, Rick Johnson, Master Gardeners of Western MA, Sally Soluri, Stockbridge Highway Department, Stockbridge Police Department, Fire Department and Emergency Management Team, Taft Farms, Tom Touponce, Donny Brooks at Wizard Security, Rob Williams, and many more.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank a special few who dedicated many hours of their time preparing for (and participating in) the Festival, including Amy Butterworth (Opportunity Clothing), Janet Laudenslager (Botanical Baker extraordinaire), Faye Morgan-Amidon (Finance), the Senior Class of 2026 of Monument Mountain High School (Haunted House), the BBG Herb Associates, as well as the many dedicated members of the Lenox Garden Club (Accessorize/Jewelry) who set sales records this year!

Lastly, I'd like to acknowledge our wonderful Director of Special Events, Danielle Pellerin, whose hard work and dedication to this (and all) BBG events ensured one of the smoothest run Harvest Festivals I can remember! Thank you, Danielle, for doing such a wonderful job… we hope you can get some well-deserved rest now.

Gratefully,

Michael Beck

Executive Director