VIDEO: Arts And Crafts Festival

LAMAR COUNTY, Ala. (WCBI)- A south Lamar County city is working to build up it’s community.

The Millport Chamber of Commerce hosted an arts and crafts festival as it’s annual fundraiser Saturday.

Getting the word out was the goal, Saturday, as local businesses from all over Lamar County had the chance to showcase their work.

“We’re a small town, in order to promote visibility for small business we feel that it is important to have them come together and play off of each other’s strengths and have an organized situation where people can come to one place where people can see all available businesses in the area. Hopefully they will do repeat business with them once they see what they have to offer here today,” South Lamar Chamber Of Commerce President Edna Cole.

The festival was held at the Millport Armory. The community got to enjoy; food, music, dancing, and of course shopping.

Cole says this event will get the word out about the area businesses, but also preserve a part of local history.

“Most of the proceeds will go back into the up keep of this building. The chamber of commerce owns this building, that was a former national guard armory. We’re using it as an incubation for any kind of small business. The scouts meet here. There are lots of community groups that rent the space to have a large area to have a bigger group then what their facility will hold,”said Cole.

Blake Sanford owns Blake Sanford Photography and Boutique.

“We have small street fairs and stuff like that and this is our first year doing the arts festival. It was a good way to first show people what I’m offering and what all we have and just supporting our local town just trying to build Millport up,”said Sanford.

Saturday’s event featured local bands, the bama dancers, and several vendors. Cole says it took all hands on deck to make the event a success.

“It took an overwhelming effort but I am so thankful we have a chamber that’s so willing to work and to pull things together. We been working on this event for about two and a half to three months. We’ve tried to advertise it well out into the community and it seems to be paying off today,”said Cole.

Sanford says the event was so well organized she hopes to do it every year.

“We’ll definitely make this a yearly thing as long as Millport offers it. And we would love to have anybody else join us with it,”said Sanford.

The chamber has held a different event for five years now to raise money for the community.