70th Annual Mattituck Strawberry Festival Is a Wonderful Summer Celebration

Seventy summers, countless strawberries, and one sweet tradition that keeps a community coming back for more, as the Mattituck Strawberry Festival returns June 11 to 15.

This festival is more than just a celebration of strawberries; it’s a 70 year tradition that many people look forward to.

“We think of it as the unofficial kickoff to the summer,” said Dan Kelleher, the Hulling Night Chair at the festival. Strawberry season on Long Island is coming and with it comes the annual Mattituck Strawberry festival and all the carnival games, live entertainment, raffles, and of course strawberry foods.

The Mattituck Strawberry Festival  is more than a festival or a celebration of strawberry season here on Long Island, as it is also the Mattituck Lions – aka the East End Lions Club’s largest fundraising event.

“Everything we do is kinda focused on using the money we raise to using the money that we raise to give back to both the local community as well as a variety of national and regional organizations though Lions Club International but a lot of the funds are really to give back to folks who need it here on the North Fork and East End and I think that’s part of why the community is so supportive in rallying behind the festival.” Kelleher explained.

To date the Mattituck Lions have successfully raised over one million dollars from the event all of which has either been donated to charity or reinvested back into the local community.

The event is set to go from June 11 to June 15 at the Strawberry Fields fair grounds on North Road in Mattituck with a diverse lineup of activities spread across the five days. “We’ve really tried to put together a full slate of events particularly on the weekend.” Kelleher said.

The festival begins on the 11th with what is called “Hulling Night” which is where attendees come together to process the many strawberries to be used to make the various strawberry foods that will be served at the festival such as strawberry shortcake. This strawberry shortcake serves a larger role than just a fun treat. This is because the Strawberry Festival hosts a large strawberry shortcake eating competition with competitive eater and internet micro celebrity Eric James Booker aka BadlandsChugs having previously competed. There’s more as the festival is also host to a beauty pageant called the Strawberry Queen pageant where local high school students compete with the winner being crowned the Strawberry Queen. Furthermore local bands and musical acts like the reggae band Aqua Cherry will be performing and there will be a fireworks display on the June 12, 13, and 14.

The East End Lions Club, the group responsible for the festival, is a member club of the over 100 year old Lions Clubs International which according to the Lions Clubs International’s website is the world’s largest service club organization with 1.4 million members and 46,000 individual clubs worldwide. The stated goal of the Lions Clubs is to aid their local communities via raising funds through events like the Mattituck Strawberry festival to donate to various charitable causes.

“My favorite part of being a lion is our motto, we serve.” said David Dominy, the festival chairman. Continuing Dominy said “It is by far the most gratifying thing I do.”

“For us that’s really what drives us to make things bigger, make the customer experience better for everyone that comes out and really to have that community support is what keeps us going. It’s obviously a busy schedule and folks from the Lions Club are volunteering their time on fathers day but I think it’s really entirely worth it.” Kelleher said.

This as mentioned is the 70th time this annual festival has been held with the first ever Mattituck Strawberry Festival having been held on June 16 of 1955.

“It really has grown and I think that we’re getting folks obviously from certainly the East End and all parts of Long Island everywhere from the island, to Connecticut, New Jersey, the city, Westchester. It’s certainly taken on a life of its own. I think that it’s something that is pretty unique that we have so many folks outside of the North Fork who are interested in it but there still is this really small town feel which is maybe different from other festivals that have grown this large.” said Kelleher.