The Bristol Mum Festival is happening this weekend and this year, they're celebrating their 60th anniversary.
"Generations come home, grandparents, parents, kids and it's our hometown, you know," Mum Festival committee member Mickey Goldwasser said.
For six decades, the Mum Festival has brought families back to the heart of Bristol on Memorial Boulevard. Since January, the Exchange Club of Bristol and Mum Festival volunteers have been working countless hours to make the festival happen.
The annual fall event hosts over 135 vendors that includes artists, business vendors and fair food.
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"Our food trucks offer everything from tacos, to grilled chickens, gourmet hot dogs, cheese sandwiches, special gourmet tater tots, gourmet filled cupcakes, giant stuffed cookies, we have the baked stuffed potatoes so you don't have to go to the Big E," Mum Festival vendor chairperson Andrea Adams said.
But organizers say the soul of the festival is honoring the hometown heroes. The event is held on a street that's lined with flags and powerful memorial monuments to those who've given their lives to our country.
"There are 17 of our citizens that went off to Vietnam and did not come home and this is our way of honoring them," Goldwasser said. "This is our way of saying thank you to them."
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The Mum Festival is already underway and it goes through Sunday. The festival is open from noon until 9:30 pm. Saturday and noon until 6 p.m. on Sunday.
"You name it, we have it right here you don't need to leave Bristol, so a lot of good stuff. It's a lot of good stuff so come on down," Adams said.
