Event organizers and vendors breathed a sigh of relief Sunday, when Friday?s and Saturday?s miserably wet weather gave way to perfectly sunny skies for the Fells Point Fun Festival.
Saturday?s rain “was crushing. It was ruinous for us,” said Ellen Von Karajan, executive director of the Preservation Society for the historic maritime neighborhood.
The annual festival is the society?s major fundraiser, usually raking in $100,000 a year for local preservation efforts.
But with the “horrible” turnout Saturday, Von Karajan said, some projects, such as the restoration of the 200-year-old Leeke?s Academy on Aliceanna Street, where Frederick Douglass wasn?t allowed admittance, will have to be delayed due to lack of funding.
While she couldn?t provide exact numbers on attendees or how much was raised, she did estimate that the society lost thousands of dollars.
“In historic preservation, we?re used to adversity,” she said. “Maybe we can make it up [Sunday].”
The storms also slammed the vendors who rely on the festival as a typically reliable source of revenue ? it hadn?t rained so hard in at least seven years.
Each vendor paid $225 for a spot on one of the neighborhood?s “Belgium block,” or rectangular cobblestone streets, and hoped to at least break even.
The rain “was disastrous for a small-business man like me,” said Kamlesh Choksey, a Woodbridge, Va., entrepreneur who has been selling handbags at the festival for 14 years.
But Sunday?s sunshine lured “10 times” the amount of people as Saturday, he estimated, when he had to close his booth five hours early to protect his leather purses.
“I joked that people could buy soap with their showers,” said DeShawn Marie, of Brooklyn, N.Y., at her handmade soap stand.
But Sunday, “You couldn?t ask for anything better” weather-wise, she said.
At least one vendor, Sola Ope, of Laurel, fared better in the storms.
She sold $700 worth of hand-knit caps and scarves by lunchtime Saturday, compared with $220 Sunday. “Because it was so cold, people were looking to buy warm hats,” she said.
