Volunteer Spotlight November 2026: Autumnal Fairy Festival

Every October, the forest at Baltimore Woods transforms into a magical place for our annual Autumnal Fairy Festival. This magical event would not be possible without many hours of volunteer work leading up to the event and at the event. From helping visitors park, to checking them in, and running dozens of activities throughout the woods; the volunteers did it all. Many of the volunteers transformed into different characters to make the event extra magical. As visitors traveled through the enchanted woods they encountered parking gnomes, wizards, fairies, witches, and more. One of my favorite moments was watching volunteer Cathy Morton and her granddaughter Charlotte who she has brought to volunteer with her at this event for years run the potion station. One very excited young visitor saw the Morton’s cauldron and ran up to them to share that she was a witch too. The volunteers bring so much joy to this event, but we also often hear from them about how this is their favorite event to volunteer at. 

There were also dozens of volunteers that helped beforehand to prepare for this event. Our A-Team volunteers set up tents and cauldrons, collected sticks for wands, and more during the week leading up to the event. They also helped us clean all of those up the following week. There are a lot of unique jobs to get ready for Fairy Fest and one of them is collecting fairy house materials. One of our volunteers, Rose Burdick who always runs the fairy village, has been collecting supplies for fairy house building all year! Every year she and her husband Ken, spend time collecting natural items that might make the perfect magical door, window, or whatever other fairy house feature the imaginative participants dream up. I loved stopping by the village to hear kids laughing and asking Rose “what’s this?” as she teaches them what milkweed seeds, birch bark, and some of the other natural materials are and then watches their creative fairy houses take form. Rose has a fantastic way of helping the kids transform natural materials that might be in our backyards into a special fairy house material. We also had a large group of dedicated volunteers that came early in the morning to help with setting up the day of the event and stayed late to help with cleanup afterwards. 

Visitors who have attended the event for multiple years may have noticed that the wands this year and last year had many colorful options. Those wands came from a magical visitor, Sturdy Knight.  After attending the event with his family a couple of years ago, Sturdy reached out and asked if he could carve and decorate some colorful wands for the event. Last year and this year he carved and colored over 150 wands for the event, spending over 50 hours making the unique wands. This year our Business Manager Aimee also thought about how to make the crafts even more special. She created wand topper crafts so that visitors could make their wands even more magical. The front desk volunteers cut, glued, and assembled hundreds of materials for the crafts to make these new activities possible. Almost every time I walked by the front desk there was a new wand topper, fairy house, or flower the volunteers were working on preparing. At the event I loved seeing all the participants showing off their wands, each one unique to the person with different toppers, colors, and ribbons. We have families that return to the Woods tell us that they still have their wand and it’s a prized possession. 

This event is a fun fall tradition for many families, and it helps both kids and adults connect with nature in a way they may not usually. Through exploration, play, and imagination they all have a fantastic day outside and our volunteers are such a special part of making that nature connection possible. From start to finish, volunteers really make this event possible by jumping into character, creating hundreds of crafts, guiding visitors, and so much more. Thank you to all of our fairy fest volunteers this year!

 Are you interested in becoming a volunteer? Fill out our volunteer interest form: https://baltimorewoods.org/volunteer-request-for-information/