Auroville – Despite 33 vendors attending the Auroville Olive Festival, including merchants of jewelry, art and baked goods, only three vendors sold olive-related products in the decade-long, free event.
“We try to have a diversity,” said Butte County Historical Society board member Nancy Brown. “We try to make sure we don’t have too many jewelry vendors and we try to give more priority to olive vendors, but now there aren’t too many olive vendors.”
Despite the decline in olive vendors at the festival, hosts such as the Auroville Botanic Gardens joined the event to educate the festival about planting, gardening, and more.
“We’re educating for dual purposes,” said Marina Hines. “We have a garden that we’re just starting because we were gifted 30 acres and we’re just talking about our nature center and the free classes we offer to the public. Bringing beauty and education to the community Lana is what we’re known for.”
Susan Sims of the Sims Tree Loving Center gave customers samples of olive oil to taste.
“Isn’t it just sad?” Sims said. “Some of the olive orchards have just closed. The cost of choosing has gotten too high, so it’s becoming more and more difficult to do business in California, but thankfully we’re still doing well today.”
In addition to the festival, the Butte County Historical Society organized raffles, which included donated prizes from vendors and more sponsors such as Home Depot and Feather Falls Casino.
