Blog Archives

VNA offers program to help plan so you don't burden others

10/20/2023

The Venango County Visiting Nurses Association Foundation is bringing several agencies together to help those with questions concerning end of life decision making.

VNA Venango Hospice, Morrison Funeral Home, Heritage Elder Care, UPMC Northwest Emergency Department and Community Ambulance will all be under one roof October 24 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. to answer questions and provide information.

"Conversations about end-of- life issues don’t mean you are giving up hope. It is about planning for your
future. Taking control of your life," read a statement from the VNA. "Procrastination is a big enemy of planning. The VNA Foundation encourages young and old to consider making some decisions to ease the burdens on the future self or loved ones left to deal with what is left unplanned.

"It is hard to imagine a day when an illness or injury steals your ability to make decisions for yourself," the statement continued. "No one likes to talk about it, but understanding the importance of (planning) is crucial to ensure that your wishes are known."

This event will provide information to help you protect your beneficiaries, choose who will inherit your
possessions and a means to allow you to be in charge. They stress from experience helping others that without protecting what you've worked so hard to have, the courts may decide who receives your assets. They have witnessed that this can end up leading to lengthy and pricey fees, as well as family disputes. They stress planning helps provide peace of mind down the road.

The event is free and open to the public. It kicks off at 6 p.m Tuesday at the Oakland United Church in Dempseytown and is expected to run to 7:30 p.m.

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Bike trail tunnel closed for repairs, board looking for new members

10/16/2023

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The Rockland Tunnel on the Allegheny River Trail is closed for the installation of a wall and industrial-sized overhead garage door on the eastern end.

Blocking the end of the tunnel during colder months will help to further reduce damage to the historic tunnel’s tile ceiling caused by the freeze/thaw cycle, according to a press release from the Allegheny Valley Trails Association, which owns and manages the trail.

“If this tunnel were to collapse, there would be a big gap in the trail,” said Harris. “It would be very expensive and difficult to replace.”

Once the garage door is installed, trail users will have access to the trail through a standard-size “man door” at that location. The installation is complete, which is expected to take two weeks.

During the construction phase, the public cannot pass through the tunnel and is asked to avoid the site for safety reasons. There is no detour and users are reminded to not travel onto private property, said Kim Harris, Oil Region Alliance outdoor recreation program manager and tunnel project manager.

The Rockland Tunnel is 21 miles south of Franklin. The tunnel is 2,868 feet long and curved, requiring users to bring a flashlight when traveling through it. The trail is paved and part of the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail. The tunnel was opened in 1916 for railroad use and converted to a bike trail in 2003.

Recently the parking area on the western portal was expanded and ADA-compliant parking was added through a Northwest Commission Greenways Grant funded by DCNR. That grant also funded the design of the tunnel doors.

Future plans call for a matching wall and doors to be installed on the western end when funding is secured.

Shingledecker’s Welding of Franklin is handling the construction of the eastern wall and door at a cost of $74,000 paid for by the Frederick and Ellen Fair Memorial Trust.

The large door will be raised and open during warmer weather.

Board members needed

AVTA owns and manages approximately 60 miles of trail in the Oil Region.

AVTA board president Bill Weller says they are looking for "the next generation of board members who want to continue the bike trail and carry on the tradition of AVTA.”

Along with the maintenance work along the trail, there are board responsibilities that do not involve physical labor, Weller said. These duties include helping with social media, improvements to their retail offerings, and managing the Salt Box, located in Cranberry Township just outside of Franklin.

The AVTA board meets every other month at the Salt Box.

Anyone interested in joining AVTA or serving on their board should contact the organization through its website, avta-trails.org.

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16th annual Pink Splash for a Cure on Tuesday

10/8/2023

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The 16th annual Pink Splash for the Cure will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday near the Egbert Fountain in West Parl (Fountain Park) in Franklin.

The fundraising and awareness event is planned in connection with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Attendees can buy shirts, sign up for and purchase quilt raffle tickets, basket raffle numbers, rubber duck raffle entries, cookies, decals and memorial breast cancer ribbons. Proceeds from the event benefit the Kirtland Cancer Foundation.

The event will start with the local community choir HOLeY JEANS performing. Kirtland Cancer Foundation executive director Kathy Horner will be the speaker. Cancer survivors will be invited to add pink to the fountain.

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Looking Back on 40 Years of Applefest

10/1/2023

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“The splash that Applefest has had on the area is what has been most remarkable over the years,” Jim Williams, Applefest chairperson, said when thinking about how the festival has changed and grown since its humble beginnings in 1983.

That was the year Lee Chapman came into the chamber office raving about the beauty of the Franklin area. “She just started going on and on about the beauty of the area and why don’t you have a celebration,” recalled then-chamber administrative assistant Teresa Russell.

They matched her ideas with the long-range committee’s focus on the economy and invited her to present to the group. “She had many good ideas that day, but one grew,” Russell noted of the Aug. 29 meeting.
That one would become known as Applefest.

The committee decided to put on a three-hour event in connection with homecoming, which meant putting together the first Applefest in just a little over a month. The first year featured an apple pie baking contest, a performance by the Franklin High School marching band and Chapman’s son, Michael John Chapman, not to be confused with Johnny Appleseed Chapman, handing out apples among the crowd.

The next year it had already been expanded to three days. It was also the first year for the recipe contest, cook demonstrations, a small number of crafters, a new car show, food offerings, and the Franklin Civic Operetta Association production, that year called “The Big Apple.”

And it just continued to grow.

“I’m just amazed at what Applefest has become,” Venango County commissioner Mike Dulaney said. He has experienced the festival from nearly all sides – chamber employee, small business employee, volunteer, event co-chair, local leader, and elementary school student.

“I remember in elementary school thinking ‘I don’t know what Applefest is, but I love it’,’ Dulaney recalled on growing up in the 1990s and getting Friday of the festival off from classes. “It shows you what an effect it was already having in just 10 years.”

That was the intention of the original chamber committee that gave the green light for the festival – to create an economic impact that engaged the community, Russell said, noting that the second part was just as important as the first.

As the festival grew in the early years, the chamber reached out to schools, churches, service organizations, businesses and other groups to assist with needs and host events. Among those early efforts were the dance, BBQ dinners, wooden apple decorating contest, pie and dumpling sales, and, of course, the pancake breakfast.

Russell remembers the first breakfast was in 1986 and drew a crowd of 600 people. “It was a very, very big deal.”

It was the very next year that Williams joined the volunteer group that would later be known as the CORE committee.

“The year I got involved was the year we moved the festival from the feed mill,” Williams said of one of his earliest Applefest memories. “It (Applefest) was small enough at the time that we could move it… indoors, if you could imagine that.”

Williams says it was the decision and ability to close down Liberty Street and create a “full town festival atmosphere” that was a notable turning point in the growth of the festival over the past 40 years.

He recalled the times when the Kiwanis would grill chicken in the park and the car show was about new instead of vintage and class vehicles. “As it has gotten bigger, some of these events had to go away.”

That openness to change and flex from year to year has helped the festival stay relevant, Dulaney said. “We know what’s at stake with this festival and we all care about it deeply,” he said of the planning process, which takes thousands of manhours each year.

They consider each year what needs to stay on the schedule, what should be changed or modified and what should be replaced. This attitude has led to things such as a pogo stunt show on 12th Street, a wedding on Liberty Street, and draft horse rides.

That attitude, along with an army of volunteers to implement whatever is needed, is what has kept Applefest as the Best Three Days of the Year as it approaches four decades of success in downtown Franklin.

“I’ve run into people out West who ask where I am from and then say ‘Isn’t that where Applefest is?’,” Dulaney said. His favorite part of Applefest is Sunday morning watching the cars rolling into the show just as the fog is lifting and the sun is rising.

For Williams it is “The two years we were able to score the Budweiser Clydesdales – that was confirmation that this (Applefest) was a big deal.”

Russell says her favorite memory is seeing the festival over the years. “It’s been my baby since 1983 and I’ve watched it grow and it's just been so rewarding.”

Looking back at 40 years of festivals is quite a trip, but one thing is immediately undeniable - “How much impact our three-day festival has had on the town and the region in general,” Williams said. “That trickle-down effect that goes through the community… is like a second Christmas.”

That includes the not-for-profits just as much as the businesses, Russell said. “It’s just been such a wonderful thing for Franklin because so many people benefit from it.”

“I’m hoping for 40 more,” Dulaney said.

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