NEW PALESTINE — There were thousands of pieces of free candy for kids, a chili cook-off, line dancing, pumpkin and cookie decorating, games and more at the inaugural New Palestine Harvest Fest, Saturday, Oct. 21.

With area kids in mind, the gathering was organized by New Palestine Main Street, who also host the New Palestine Summer Fest and their regular Musicfest series on Main Street — events geared more toward adults.

“We did Doodle on Deport and Trunk-or-Treat last year, but this year we wanted to take things to a new level,” New Palestine Main Street’s Julie Lucas said.

New Palestine Main Street’s Diana Boss was the chairwoman for the inaugural Harvest Fest and said organizers really wanted to do something that was more geared to letting kids have lots of fun.

“What we really wanted to do was create a fun event where kids would have a special fall event,” Boss said. “We’ve wanted to bring something like this to New Palestine for a while now.”

The organization got lucky with the weather as the afternoon was perfect for a fun fall event with warm temperatures and a slight breeze. The group could not have planned for a better outing which attracted hundreds of patrons, far more people than was expected, officials said.

Many families dressed in Halloween outfits, including Lauren Gunn’s New Palestine family.

“I love that the kids are involved and there are things for them to do here and we all get to experience this as a community,” Gunn said. “Something like this just brings everyone together.”

Her father, James Meadows, Greenwood, was dressed as Superman while her young boys were dressed up like Batman and Buzz Lightyear.

“This is great,” Meadows said. “We’ve been dancing, trick-or-treating, getting some candy and now we’re going to do some bowling.”

Folks from the Fountaintown Christian Church joined in on the fun and moved their chili cook-off to New Palestine to take part in Harvest Fest. They had 10 different chefs participate and offered the taste testers free chili as they helped to pick the winner.

“Everyone who has volunteered here today has had some great fun,” Fountaintown Church member Kathi Schulz said. “It’s been so much fun with people coming up three, four and five times trying the different chili.”

In addition to games and food, organizers also invited a dozen different vendors to give the gathering a real fun fall feel. Vendor Connie Meeker, New Palestine, thought the New Palestine Harvest Fest would be a great time to reveal her new craft business as one of 12 vendors asked to participate in the Harvest Fest.

“It’s really my first major craft fair, but a lot of people are looking,” Meeker said.

She noted lots of vendors nowadays are selling more manufactured items than they are handmade products, which is why she’s hoping her business, Take 4 Designs by Connie, catches on since she makes things by hand.

“They’re made with love and real care,” Meeker said.

While there was free apple cider, popcorn and candy for all, organizers did charge a small fee for tickets to games to help cover the cost of the Harvest Fest.

“It’s a break-even event and if we don’t make any money, we’ll just cover it because it’s for the kids,” Boss said.

Officials said they could not have pulled off the Harvest Fest, which was filled with tractors, pumpkins, hay and other things to make it feel like a real harvest event, without the help of over a dozen New Palestine High School students who worked as volunteers.