Butterfly Effect Project to host Harvest Festival and Cook-Off Oct. 15 in Riverhead

What started with an intergenerational garden club has grown into a Harvest Festival hosted by the Butterfly Effect Project.

After forming the community garden in 2020, Tijuana Fulford, the founder of the Riverhead-based organization that aims to empower girls, came up with an idea for participants to get creative with their crops.

“So I was thinking, what if they had to take an item from the garden and turn that into a dish? And then we can taste it, and instead of telling them what they had to cook … it’d be really cool if they show us what you can do with the bell pepper, what can you do with squash? What can you do with eggplant?” Ms. Fulford said.

An annual Harvest Festival and Cook-Off was born out of that idea and the organization will host its second event Saturday, Oct. 15 at First Baptist Church in Riverhead. The event runs from noon to 4 p.m.

In addition to vendors, the festival will also have performances from the group’s step team, as well as events for the whole family. Brienne Ahearn, the program and development director, said there will be a scavenger hunt, a bounce house for kids and animals from Long Island Game Farm and more. Local chefs also compete in a cook-off featuring main ingredients from the community garden.

“Essentially, the festival is really a celebration [of the] community garden as well as the harvest season here,” Ms. Ahearn said. “It’s also a kickoff for our yearly programming, which starts in October so we showcase what all of our different chapters are doing.”

The Butterfly Effect Project was founded in 2014 and has expanded to include 17 chapters in East End communities.

Participants of the garden club learn how to grow food and create healthy and sustainable habits. Participants also donate to the Open Arms food pantry at the First Baptist Church.

The festival is free to attend.

“Funding is aligned with belonging,” Ms. Fulford said. “So many times people, especially people of color, or people just on a lower income, whether they have the wrong zip code, they can’t afford to have the same level of fun that others have so they make [their] own decisions [and decide] that space is not for me and what we’re doing is making sure that we don’t feed that wall, instead we’re tearing it down,” she said.

Participants can sample and vote on cook-off dishes by paying $10. Winning prizes for the cook-off start at $300. Second place receives $200 and third place receives $100.

Local organizations and businesses can become sponsors for $300. More information is available on the organization’s website. Registration for the cook-off runs until Wednesday, Ms. Ahearn said. 

Ms. Fulford said the festival is also a great way for the community to get to know the volunteers and participants of the Butterfly Effect Project.

“It’s really neat just to see the amount of volunteers, the amount of hearts that it takes to grow, to make this,” she said. “It’s a village of us and everyone is doing exceptional work in it, so I think that’s a nice opportunity to get to know who we are and what we do and actually see and meet the girls,” she said.