The Greenbelt Labor Day Festival has been a mainstay of the community and its core Festival event since 1955 when it was first started as a way to raise funds to build a youth center. This past week, the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival Committee announced that it had decided it would be necessary to cancel this year’s Festival, which would have been the 66th. On its website (greenbeltlaborday.com) the committee said it had “made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person Festival,” and that it will be “working on virtualizing as much of our favorite activities as possible.”
Linda Ivy, committee chairperson, explained that putting on a Festival requires county permits which would require Prince George’s County to be currently at phase three of the Maryland recovery plan. As of now the county is still officially closed and is only moving toward a modified phase one reopening.
Ivy said that the committee’s decision “did not come easy and we are sad that for the first time in 66 years there will not be a Festival.” The committee considered many issues including getting permits on time, allowing for appropriate social distancing and the committee’s ability to earn enough money from this year’s Festival to be able to put on one in 2021, since each year’s Festival is funded by proceeds from the year before.
Ivy said that the group was in the very early stages of figuring out how to do many annual Festival events on a virtual basis and would announce its plans for a modified Festival over the coming weeks.