May 22, 2018 By Rachel Basinger rbasinger@heraldstandard.Com 4 min read

It started as a special event of the bicentennial celebration for the City of Connellsville, and more than a decade later has grown into a tradition that gives the community a reason to come together.

The fourteenth annual Geranium Festival will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday in the downtown business district along Crawford Avenue, rain or shine.

Bev Opperman, former chairwoman of the festival, said the Connellsville Garden club, of which she is a member, was asked to take over the festival after the bicentennial celebration.

“When we agreed, we hoped that we would just break even,” she said. “We wanted to be able to have a day where everyone had a reason to come downtown to see friends they hadn’t seen in a long time.”

From the beginning, they decided that entertainment would be free, they would provide children’s activities at no cost and host a princess contest.

The other part was to create a day where nonprofit organizations from places like churches, the school district, the library and whoever else, could set up booths to raise money for their cause.

The geraniums were the factor that brought everything together, and the city partnered with Oglevee to supply the flowers.

When Oglevee went out of business, the Cellurale family purchased the greenhouses on Oglevee Lane.

“When we bought Oglevee, we continued to raise geraniums,” said John Cellurale, general manager of the business. “It was important for us to keep the jobs here in Connellsville. Oglevee is part of our heritage — they were the world leaders in geranium production.”

Purchasing the greenhouses, allowed for Cellurale to expand and the employees, who knew the business, stayed on — making it a seamless transition.

“We were approached by members of the garden club who said they were still interested in having the festival and asked if we would be their suppliers,” Cellurale said.

The two entities came to an agreement and the festival continues to thrive, growing each year.

Opperman said the first year they ever had the festival, they ordered 500 geraniums to sell at the festival.

“We realized within 30 minutes that we were going to be more, because we were out of flowers,” she said. “Each year we just keep bumping it up because we would hear complaints over the years that there were people who would be coming at 11 a.m. or noon and we would be out of flowers.”

This year Cellurale will supply nearly 4,000 geraniums.

“They are always coming up with new colors, so we try to keep up with that and provide a variety of options,” Opperman said.

The cost of the four-inch pots this year will be $2.50.

“I’ve been watching at different places I’ve gone so far this year, and I think this is the cheapest that I’ve seen them,” she added.

Connellsville Mayor Greg Lincoln said the Geranium Festival is the official kickoff of summer in the city.

“It has grown into one of the best community events we have here in the city,” he said. “Our churches, band boosters, school clubs and other nonprofit organizations raise money and they look forward to that,” he said. “The garden club is a wonderful local organization that maintains all of the flower gardens here in the city, and they’re just another cog in the wheel towards the beautification of the city.”

While Opperman said their goal at the beginning was just to break even, they have been fortunate enough to have raised some funds.

“(Just recently) we took the geranium festival funds and (gave new life) to the plaza downtown,” Opperman said. “We took out all of the old plants and planted all new plants that are native to Pennsylvania.”

The garden club has their own budget, which they have been using recently to rehabilitate Cameron’s Court across from the Carnegie Free Library.

“I think for now, any future geranium festival funds we receive will also go towards the Cameron Court project,” she said.

Activities scheduled for Saturday include:

n 9 a.m. — festival opens and geranium sales and food vendor booths begin

n 9:30 a.m. — princess contest

n 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The High Ryder Band takes Lion’s Square stage

n 11 a.m.-3 p.m. — bounce house and face painting

n 12:30 p.m. — pet parade

n 1 p.m. — magician

n 2 p.m. — Mon Valley Cloggers take to Lion’s Square stage

n stilt walkers and a DJ will be at the festival throughout the day