Live Music and Folklife Demonstrations Headline the Fun at Heemet Fescht 2025

Live Music and Folklife Demonstrations Headline the Fun at Heemet Fescht 2025

KUTZTOWN, Pa. - Indulge your interest in regional folk culture at the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center's Heemet Fescht 2025, a celebration of the harvest and Pennsylvania Dutch farm life, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, historic Sharadin Farmstead, 22 Luckenbill Road, Kutztown.

Heemet (pronounced HAY-met) means "home" in Pennsylvania Dutch. Heemet Fescht features live music in the barnyard, traditional crafts, folklife demonstrations, hearth-cooking, farm animals, children's activities and more. The event is free, fun and educational for the whole family.

Enjoy some of the region's finest in traditional music in the barnyard featuring local Berks County folk musicians Mike and Linda Hertzog, Keith Brintzenhoff, Northside Stringband and The Shooflies. Join Dr. William Donner in the schoolhouse to learn about Pennsylvania German harvest traditions and Patrick Donmoyer for a presentation on Mountain Mary: Sainted Healer of the Oley Valley.

Traditional artisans from the Reading-Berks Chapter of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen will share their expertise in fine crafts in the historic log cabins onsite, along with folklife demonstrators in woodworking, tin smithing, blacksmithing and more throughout the farm. Learn about barn stars and hex signs with preeminent painter Eric Claypoole, who has painted more than 100 barns in his career and will be demonstrating his traditional barn art.

Grab a burger or savor some French fries from the Kutztown Lion's Club stand in the barnyard. Visit the Sharadin farmhouse to see open-hearth regional cookery in the kitchen featuring traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food. Be sure to stop by the summer kitchen to taste Terry Berger's sugar cookies baked in a wood stove.

Children can explore autumn craft activities including pumpkin painting and potato stamps. Puddin Heartland's extraordinary potbellied pigs will also delight visitors of all ages.

Visitors can also volunteer to help with bringing in the potato harvest on the farm acreage, where the Potato Project will be hosting its annual potato picking to provide crops to families in need through the Berks County Foodbank.

Don't forget to visit our new headquarters at the DeLight E. Breidegam Building to explore our featured exhibition "Healing Herbs and Vibrant Roots: Transatlantic Botanical Traditions Among the Pennsylvania Dutch." Pick up a copy of the newest volume to the annual Heritage Center publication series, "Sauer's Herbal Cures: America's First Book of Botanical Healing," by William Woys Weaver, hot off the press and available the Heritage Center bookstand.

For more information, follow PGCHC on Facebook and Instagram, visit the Heritage Center's website or call 610-683-1589.