The Junction City Scandinavian Festival started in 1961 as a collaborative project to support our town’s economy, while celebrating our heritage. The event would not have carried on for the last six decades if it were not for community members and business owners with the same vision of supporting one another. Urban Arbor Care out of Eugene, Oregon recognized this and became a new supporter of the Scandinavian Festival this year.

          We are so grateful to Urban Arbor Care for donating their time and labor. We reached out with needs and they said, “yes”. They came and trimmed trees throughout the Festival’s grounds. There are many tall trees throughout the grounds and Urban Arbor Care spent a day working to clean up the limbs to ensure the trees stay healthy. A few tress have been removed over the last couple of years due to age and disease. Urban Arbor Care served our community by helping us save the ones we have left. Our future goals will be to replace the trees we have lost, but since financially we are not able to do this at this time, we are on a mission to preserve what we have left for future generations. We could not have done this without the partnership and gracious donation from Urban Arbor Care.

          The last few years the Scandinavian Festival has had to pivot and get creative to make the show go on. Since 2020, we have had to adapt after missing one year of our event (Unfestival) and the financial burdens we have encountered since then. We have also fallen victim to vandalism in multiple forms, arson being one. Our desires are to make the event continue for many more decades, but we can’t do that without the collaboration from the community. We know our event is special and different since it is completely volunteer operated and supported by the community, for the community. There is a magic to that, the appreciation and love we feel when people come alongside us to support the Junction City Scandinavian Festival is overwhelming.

          Thank you, Urban Arbor Care, for supporting our town, our event and helping us meet our needs. We cannot express fully the burden you lifted from us as volunteers. Thank you for taking your time and providing a service we could not have done ourselves. It truly means a lot to us. We hope to see you at the Junction City Scandinavian Festival this year. Please reach out to any volunteer wearing a blue badge. I’m sure you will be thanked personally and likely invited for a drink and a laugh.

Many thanks,

The Junction City Scandinavian Festival Board