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Want to really celebrate the start of the summer season? Then take the whole family to the annual Strawberry Jazz Festival being sponsored by the Community Arts Council of Kankakee County 11 a.m. -4 p.m. June 3 at Gov. Small Memorial Park, 801 S. Eighth Ave., Kankakee. The free event will feature more than 60 arts and crafts artisans displaying handmade items, a wide variety of food vendors and continuous entertainment. The festival has grown so large that it now utilizes the entire park. Last year thousands of people browsed through displays around the grounds and in the Dr. A.L. Small Home, Civic Auditorium and Kankakee County Museum. They also visited the Old Taylor School House and then strolled through both of the park’s beautiful gardens. “It seems as if each year attendance grows and along with it the number of vendors who want to participate. It’s a way for people of all ages to experience many kinds of arts and crafts and have a wonderful time doing it,” says Sherry Merry, public relations chair of CAC. “There are so many activities that people can spend the whole afternoon enjoying the arts and relaxing,” says Janice Miller, president of the Community Arts Council Inside the Dr. Small Home there will be demonstrations and a display of quilts, plus other types of artistic needlework and pieces created by porcelain painters. Other vendors will feature a myriad of items, from watercolor, acrylic and oil paintings, wood carvings, pottery, jewelry and photographs, to garden plants and sculptures, cement leaves, bird houses and children’s clothing. There also will be jams, jellies, strawberries and other summer produce for sale. This year a new event has been added. An auction, composed of gifts from each vendor, will be held at the Civic Auditorium to raise funds for high school summer art scholarships. Other activities will include a car show featuring vintage autos from the Heiland Road Hot Rodders Club, and a used book sale by the Friends of the Kankakee Public Library. Children will be as busy as their parents. Volunteers from the museum will be in the Old Taylor Schoolhouse to read books illustrated by former local artist Ken Stark and talk about what it was like to attend a one-room school. Children also will have a chance to play the games students from bygone days played at recess. In addition, youngsters will have an opportunity to make shapes from strawberry sculpting dough and color the characters in large posters hand-drawn just for the festival. There also will be face painting and henna painting. A Karate demonstration, dance performances, and piano recitals will be held featuring children. Entertainment will be performed throughout the afternoon on the Civic Auditorium’s stage and porch. Performers will include a Dixieland band, several dancing groups, musicians, solo and choral singers, a barbershop group, jugglers, fire dancers, and skits from coming productions of Kankakee Valley Theatre and Acting Out Theatre. Suzuki piano students and students of the Kankakee River Valley Piano Teachers Association will perform in the museum. Vendors are asked to follow a strawberry theme so look for a variety of delicious summer taste treats. There will be chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry pie, shortcake and other strawberry foods; pork chop and pulled pork sandwiches, hot dogs and rib tips; funnel cakes, kettle corn, cotton candy and much more. Parking will be free. Charles St. between Water St.
and Eighth Ave. will be closed, but visitors will find plenty
of parking in the field across from the Civic Auditorium
and in the field along Calista Ave. Handicapped parking
also will be available in the oval near the museum.
Signs will guide visitors. For more information
call 815-933-ARTS Entertainment Schedule: 
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