by John Hensler

The Marshall County Blueberry Festival has come and gone, but we sure did have fun while it lasted. With over 500,000 people in attendance, the festival is second only to the Indianapolis 500 in size for a weekend event. What’s not to love? Arts and crafts, tractor pulls and those amazing blueberry doughnuts- of course we wanted to join the crowds in Plymouth’s Centennial Park.

As much as we love all those sweet blueberry treats, it’s the parade that really gets our hearts pounding, and this year Hensler’s had the honor of participating in the Blueberry Festival parade. We shined up our 1961 Ford tractor and sent two floats down Michigan street to the beat of the high school marching bands.

Our two floats, one for Fall Fest and the other for Christmas Fest, represented how we like to celebrate the seasons. We’re hosting continuous festivities starting September 13th with Fall Fest which goes all the way through October. On November 1st we’ll make the transition to Christmas Fest which ends on Christmas Eve. Our floats are just a preview for the party we’re planning to host this year at Hensler’s.

We’re so proud of the work that went into making our floats. We had the opportunity to work with artist Mitch Markovitz who created the illustrations used on our banners. If you attended the parade, you may have realized that the boy on the Fall Fest banner looked very much like the boy waving to the crowd on the float. His name is Matthew and he’s Mitch’s son who has become our face of Fall.

On the parade route, Mitch was handed a trophy for the President’s award because there was “just something special” about the Fall Fest float. Mrs. Claus was the guest of honor on the Christmas Fest float and called out to the crowd lining Michigan street to come see her at Hensler’s this year along with Santa and the real reindeer.

Here are a few photos as we prepared to hit the parade route: