First Marion Fall Festival

‘Big church in the curve’ draws big crowd

By RALPH HARDIN

ralhhardin@gmail.com

Sunday afternoon, Marion First Baptist Church was inundated by a host of ghosts, princesses, comic book heroes, ninjas and witches of all sorts, as the First Marion Fall Festival made its return to the community.

Thousands of costumed kiddos made their way through the Trunk-or-Treat line, with more than 80,000 pieces of candy distributed during the event, which also featured food trucks, in_atables, music and even free rides on the Transylvania Train for attendees.

“This is our biggest community event of the year,” said pastor Dr. James Nichols. “We want everyone to feel welcome at church. We want to do what we can to reach people for Christ, but this one is all about just having fun for everyone. They all see the ‘big church in the curve,’ and we want to invite everyone to come out for events like our Fall Festival and we want to invite them to come back for Sunday worship.”

Halloween is tomorrow night and kids of all ages will be out in numbers going door-to-door in search of treats, so keep your eyes on the road for jaywalking vampires, cowgirls and zombies if you’re out and about on Thursday evening.

From cartoon characters to crazy clowns, the parade of trunk-or-treaters at the First Marion Fall Festival was a cavalcade of costumed kids.

Photos by Ralph Hardin