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Smithfield VA Events and Farm Fed have made donations to the Franklin-Southampton County Fair to help with recovery from the severe storm damage the fairgrounds experienced in August. 

Franklin-Southampton County Fair Board President Glenn Joyner reported that the recovery is going smoothly, thanks in large part to generous community support.

What the National Weather Service reported preliminarily as a “thunderstorm wind event” left a wake of destruction in its path at the Franklin-Southampton County Fairgrounds on Sunday evening, Aug. 4, leading to the cancellation of the 2024 fair, which was set to start three days later.

Fair officials and the NWS confirmed that no one was injured during the weather event, but it left some outbuildings and the food court area at the fairgrounds in ruins, also ripping open the back of the largest building on the property.

In a Tuesday, Sept. 17, interview, Joyner said the recovery work is going well.

“We’ve gotten all the cleanup done,” he said. “We’ve gotten our big building repaired so we could get our grounds opened back up, so we are opening back up to rent it out again.”

He said the fair board started renting the facility out the first weekend in September.

A visual inspection of the food court area on Wednesday, Sept. 11, showed the grounds cleared, completely free of fallen and broken trees and debris. The weather event had heavily damaged the line of buildings forming the food court, and where they used to be is now simply a slab of concrete representing the court’s original foundation.

“We were very fortunate that the foundation wasn’t damaged,” Joyner said. “That’s a big cost savings there.”

The recovery work that remains on the fairgrounds is the rebuilding of the food court and the repair of three roofs elsewhere on the grounds.

Joyner said the fair board is waiting on the drawings for the plans of the new food court to come back from a developer, and he said he expects the court to be rebuilt sometime this winter.

He noted that the fair board uses the food court for only its own events, so that facility will probably not be needed again until the time period approaching next year’s fair.

What has fueled the fairgrounds’ recovery has been the generosity of the fair’s sponsors, who have given back to the fair, and additional donations that have covered what insurance would not, Joyner said.

Larry Saint, president of Smithfield VA Events, attended the Franklin-Southampton County Fair Board’s regular monthly meeting Sept. 11 to present a check for $5,000 to aid in the storm recovery.

“We’re very proud to be here tonight,” he said, specifically referencing himself and another Smithfield VA Events Board of Directors member, John Payne. “When (Smithfield VA Events) heard about what happened to your facility with the storm that came through, our festival director, Gina Ippolito, called up our board members and said, ‘Hey, this happened down in Southampton County. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something for them?’

“So we do have a rainy day fund, and we know what it’s like to have that rainy day fund depleted, with COVID, right?” he continued. “We were shut down.”

He noted that Smithfield VA Events has also been affected by the weather in the past.

“We didn’t have property losses, but we sure had revenue losses,” he said. “So we know kind of what that’s like, and so we thought, let’s give them a little bit of money and see if that can help with repairs and everything to all your facilities. So we’re proud to present $5,000 to you…”

Paula Dullas, owner of Farm Fed food truck, also attended the Sept. 11 fair board meeting to present a check for $500.

“We were supposed to be here for the fair,” she said. “We love coming every year, and when the craziness happened, we lost some income, but then we decided to save 10% of our sales in the month of August and just bring it to you all. … It’s from the community. We’ve been getting people to support us so we can support you all.”

Joyner noted that The Graceful Baker, a Franklin-based business, has also pledged to donate a percentage of its sales.

Additionally, Joyner said that a young girl, Adalynn Drake, the daughter of Matt and Amy Drake of Newsoms, has raised money from her lemonade and cookie stand and presented it to the fair board.

“The community’s reached out,” Joyner said. “I just wanted to make it known that the community has been very supportive of (the recovery), the county’s been very supportive of it, as (in) getting whatever we needed there, and donations have been greatly appreciated.”