DOVER-Goats, face painting, and a bouncy house. That's just the tip of the iceberg of Dover Day 2025.
The fall festival is scheduled from noon to 4 pm Sunday, October 5, at Dover Town Hall and Dover Free Library. The event features numerous activities for community members, including games like pumpkin bowling and eating doughnuts from a string, live music with Logan Boyd, fire trucks, tractors, goats from Dover Hill Creamery, and a cow named Rose, the pet of Dover Day 2025 co-coordinator Lindsey Brown-Rosso's daughter.
Brown-Rosso and co-coordinator Janet Rivers organized their first Dover Day last year, but Brown-Rosso isn't the first in her family to help host the celebration.
"My grandmother Elizabeth Brown, Traci Bartlett, and other local residents started the first Dover Day in 2005 or so," Brown-Rosso said. "It was a yearly event for a while, and then at some point, it sort of fell by the wayside. I was a part of the Dover Historical Society with Janet last year, and we brought up the idea of getting the event going again."
Brown-Rosso said the other trustees of the Historical Society gave her and Rivers the green light, but once the date was scheduled, she was unsure whether they could pull off the festival in time.
"I was like, 'No, we can't do it. We just don't have enough, it's so soon,"' Brown-Rosso said. "And Janet reassured me that we got it. I really love her for that. She's so great at taking risks."
Brown-Rosso said last year's event was a success, and it was rewarding to see their orchestrated hard work come together for people to enjoy the day. When scheduling activities for Dover Day, Brown-Rosso said she and Rivers throw lots of ideas at each other.
"The event is meant to be a community event, so we started our brainstorming in Dover," Brown-Rosso said. "We think of who in Dover has animals, who can be a part of the craft fair, what businesses are here that we can bring in. We're looking for involvement close to home, as our goal is to put on a community event with community members."
Brown-Rosso said the goats from Dover Hill Creamery and the craft vendors are new features of the festival this year. Dover Day 2025 received funding from the Dover Selectboard, which is also new for its organizers.
"I'm grateful for the support of the town and the Dover Selectboard," Brown-Rosso said. "Last year, we brought Dover Day back through the Dover Historical Society, and everybody's donations basically funded Dover Day 2024. Janet and I went to Shannon Wheeler and asked her to bring the event to the Dover Selectboard for funding this year, and the board approved it."
Brown-Rosso said she hopes the celebration brings Dover residents and passersby together.
"There's not one specific thing that I look forward to as much as the release of seeing everyone having such a great time once the hustle and bustle of setting everything up settles," Brown-Rosso said. "That's what I'm looking forward to the most."
Dover Town Hall and Dover Free Library are located at 189 Taft Brook Road, East Dover. For more information about Dover Day 2025, visit doververmont.com.
A version of this story appeared in The Deerfield Valley News, The Commons' sister newspaper.
This Town and Village item by Cierra O'Hearn originally appeared in The Deerfield Valley News and was republished in The Commons with permission.