calling on girls across the county<\/a> to step into the spotlight and keep the tradition alive.<\/p>\n“I thought, before we cancel, let’s just reach out to the community,\u201d Konopelski said.<\/p>\n
For those who may be hesitant, organizers say the pageant offers a welcoming first step into competition.<\/p>\n
“It’s a really kind of low stress, low pressure pageant,\u201d Konopelski said.<\/p>\n
Participants also have the chance to earn prizes.<\/p>\n
“They can win up to $250, first place. Second place is $100, third place is $75,\u201d Konopelski said.<\/p>\n
But beyond the awards, organizers say the experience itself is what matters most \u2014 an opportunity for young participants, ages 4 through 14, to discover confidence and showcase their talents.<\/p>\n
“There’s so many different activities for kids. A lot of its sports or maybe the arts,\u201d Konopelski said. “This allows these kids to have an opportunity to be on stage, be in the limelight, and shine with their own different talents and skill set.”<\/p>\n
The festival kicks off next Thursday, promising food, entertainment and a longstanding local favorite.<\/p>\n
“We have bands and food and rides and, of course, apple dumplings \u2014 tons and tons of apple dumplings.” Konopelski said.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday, organizers say a decision will be made: Will the pageant continue, or has it reached its final stage?<\/p>\n
“We’d love to see it go, you know, continue going on, but that’s for the community to decide. And all the little girls,\u00a0I guess,\u201d Konopelski said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 A local festival is bobbing for help. The Apple Dumpling Festival is facing a challenge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[80360,349,80361,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-179972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-apple-dumpling-festival","tag-berks-county","tag-pageant","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}