Festival provides Easter fun for big and small
Locals and visitors could browse through dozens of stalls, munch on the delicious food on offer, listen to live musical entertainment or sit down for a drink and a chat with friends and family at the annual Marlothi Easter Festival on Saturday.
MARLOTH PARK – From antiques and paintings to indigenous plants and curry and rice, could be found at this year’s Marlothi Easter Festival on Saturday.
The annual event at the Marloth Shopping Centre draws hundreds of residents and visitors and provides them with a day full of entertainment and fun, while raising awareness and funds for local organisations.
Several local crafters and artists displayed products such as home-made soap, paper flowers, paintings and Easter-themed decorations. Joachim and Annemarie Schulz attracted much interest with their stall full of antiques such as telephones, a gramophone player and artwork. Local bead artist Isaac Ngwaru also drew festivalgoers with his creative beaded items, ranging from large dogs to small giraffe key rings.
Four young entrepreneurs, Sky and Payton Da Silva, Tahilah Goodman and Susan Ndlovu, were seen throughout the festival with their trays of treats and crafts. The girls had painted faces and bunny ears, painted several children’s faces and eagerly peddled their jewellery, decorations and cloth dolls.
Sharon MacDonald, co-owner of the Marlothi Shopping Centre, handed out the raffle prizes and auctioned off several items to enthusiastic shoppers looking for bargains.
Contrary to the normal stuffy Lowveld temperatures, the weather was cool and overcast, prompting festivalgoers to queue for coffee and pancakes. Other food stalls also did great business selling curry and rice, boerewors rolls, hamburgers and ribs.
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From lunch, the beer garden was packed with jolly people, digging into festival fare, enjoying drinks and listening to the day’s live entertainment, the LM Boys.
The popular duo from KwaZulu-Natal is a familiar sight at the market, having performed there several times over the past years, and had stallholders and visitors singing and dancing to familiar hits from mid-morning to late afternoon.
Local organisations also had the opportunity to raise awareness and funds for their causes. Marlothii Conservancy sold indigenous trees and had an interesting display of plants, rocks and animal bones. Visitors were encouraged to learn more about the area’s nature life with information boards and through purchasing study material.
The Marloth Park Honorary Rangers raised awareness about alien-invasive plants commonly found in gardens and discouraged visitors from planting them. Several boards detailed animals that could be seen in Marloth Park, some of the dangerous snakes found here and the organisation’s activities.
The Marloth Wildlife Fund raised money for the area’s animals by cooking up large pots of curry and rice and enthusiastically selling adorable baby clothes.
A few women of the local Solidariteit Helpende Hand branch sold beautiful paper flowers, home-made soap and other interesting products. The organisation aims to alleviate poverty and help needy children and elderly in the community.
Local DA members wove through the crowd in their blue T-shirts, signing up new members and urging people to sign their #NoConfidence petition to remove the president, Jacob Zuma from office. The local branch’s chairman, Dan Modiga, and Cllr Mariette Preddy were also on hand to chat to interested members of the public.
One of the festival’s main aims is to raise funds for local organisations taking care of the area’s fauna and flora and some of the proceeds were once again donated to their causes.
