Last Saturday, while the area was being dumped on by Mother Nature with deluges of heavy rain, what better place was there to be than inside in the dry with your family and your friends to enjoy a well attended Fall Festival in the school gym.

That was exactly the scenario for the Penn Kidder PTA's 6th Annual Fall Festival which was held at the Penn Kidder Campus of the Jim Thorpe Area School District.In keeping with the time of year, all kinds of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and other strange creatures invaded the school's gym and cafeteria to enjoy a day of carnival games, costume contests, music, dancing, and food.According to Penn Kidder PTA President Kathy Saxon, the Fall Festival was started to give families in the Penn Kidder area an opportunity to have a fun family day to celebrate Halloween and the Fall season.She noted that they had about twenty carnival games for the kids to play and every child that played a game received a piece of candy each time that they played and, if they won, they received a prize.Saxon said that many PTA volunteers donated their time and talent to make the event a great success and they also had help from the teachers and staff and great support from the administration.The volunteers also did a great job with gathering items for their Chinese auction which had over 75 items in it and in addition to that, there was also a 50-50 raffle.Kathy Saxon said that the Fall Festival had a great turnout with about 400 people attending the event and that she wanted to thank everyone involved who helped out with it.There was also a representative of the Penn Kidder Area Council of the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce present to help out with the sale of red T-shirts to support the troops with proceeds going to Fisher House which is part of Walter Reed Rehabilitation Center and also to Operation Santa Claus at Tobyhana Army Depot for a Holiday party for physically and mentally challenged children in the area.All proceeds from the Fall Festival go back to the students at Penn Kidder through PTA sponsored events and programs.Anyone with questions or desiring more information about the Penn Kidder PTA can contact Kathy Saxon at (570) 722-2636.