GREENFIELD — A new social media marketing campaign helped boost attendance at this weekend’s Pennsy Trail Art Fair and Music Festival, leaders said.
The event, which was held Saturday to support Mental Health Partners of Hancock County, featured more than a dozen vendors of fine art, crafts, jewelry and more, as well as an adult big-wheel competition, live music and food vendors throughout the day.
The organization received funding through the Hancock County Tourism Commission, which uses funds from the local innkeeper’s tax to support events that promote tourism in Hancock County. Mental Health Partners used that money to create a social media campaign, drawing the attention of people on Facebook and other social media networks, said Christa Riggs, president of the Mental Health Partners board of directors.
The Ducky Derby, the MHP’s traditional raffle drawing for prizes, saw hundreds of rubber duckies floating in the fountain on the courthouse square on Saturday. Some 128 people bought ducks, purchasing more than 1,000 ducks, said Mental Health Partners of Hancock County president Kim Hall.
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The 16th-annual event has raised as much as $10,000 for Mental Health Partners in the past, Hall said. She hasn’t completed counts for the fundraising aspects of the event yet, but said the turnout was good enough on the sunny Saturday that some food vendors ran out of their offerings.
Six teams from various businesses and organizations faced off in the MHP Grand Prix, a race on grown-up-sized big wheel bikes, Riggs said.
The Greenfield Police Department team won this year’s top prize, she said.
Mental Health Partners of Hancock County is a nonprofit agency dedicated to improving the quality of life for people affected by mental illness through advocacy, education and support services.
Programs supported by Mental Health Partners include the Hancock County Behavioral Care Assistance Program, which places heroin users in a recovery house; low- or no-cost mental health counseling, suicide prevention education and suicide survivor support groups and more. One of the organization’s newest educational efforts is QPR Training, a suicide-prevention education program aimed at helping regular citizens respond appropriately to someone who may be considering suicide and keeping them safe until they can receive professional help.
Hall said the art fair and music festival, which is free of admission, is a thank-you from Mental Health Partners to the community for its assistance throughout the year.
She was pleased with the turnout.
“I was amazed at how many people were there that day,” she said. “Everybody seemed to be having a really good time.”
