Nonprofit organizations that help make the Palmerton Community Festival the attraction that it is have one week to decide if they want to hold this year’s event.

That was the outcome of a festival committee meeting Thursday at the Palmerton pool picnic grove pavilion where participants debated what will occur for what would be the 31st annual Palmerton Community Festival.

After much dialogue, it was decided that if there’s a minimum of at least 50 percent of the nonprofits that want to participate, then the event will be held with some modifications, according to Susie Arner, event chairwoman.

“At this point, all of the nonprofit groups that participate in the festival on a regular basis, which are those that were planning to participate, now have the opportunity to take this information back to their respective members and officers to discuss it and decide if they want to participate in 2020,” Arner said. “At least 50 percent of those nonprofit groups have to say they want to participate, with modifications.”

Arner said those modifications would include no rides, no craft tent, no bingo tent and no live entertainment.

“All of those modifications were decided on by the board in order to avoid high-touch areas and areas of group gatherings and congregations,” she said. “With just the stands along the midway, mostly just food and a few games that would be remaining, it was felt that the flow of people would be in and out more evenly than they would congregating and staying in one spot for many, many hours (so that to avoid upward of 100 people sitting in the same general area).”

So, will there be a festival this year in Palmerton?

Arner said “it’s definitely a wait-and-see approach.”

“There was an exchange of a lot of conversation, concerns such as will we have enough attendants, how long will people stay, will we generate enough funds for our cause with people just walking through and buying food,” she said. “Some feel they will, some have concerns; many of them are concerned that their volunteers would be (exposed to COVID-19), and they don’t want to risk getting sick.”

Arner said one of the big questions asked was how do people remain socially distant.

“Our response is it is your own responsibility,” she said. “You need to be responsible for yourself.”

Arner said the nonprofits have until on or before June 26 to make their decisions, and added an announcement would be made on the festival’s Facebook page and other social media outlets.

“If the festival occurs, we will attempt to be as responsible as possible to make it as safe for spectators and participants by increasing the number of hand-washing stations, hand sanitation stations and spacing everything as far apart as possible,” she said. “The decision to allow the nonprofit groups to have this vote was made by the board of directors because the festival’s primary goal is to be there for local nonprofit groups to raise funds for their said cause, so we felt it was important to allow them the opportunity to be a part of this decision making.”

If the decision is made to hold this year’s festival, it would run Sept. 11-13 in the borough park.