On a sunny Wednesday morning outside the recently opened Boal City Brewing in Boalsburg, Happy Valley Adventure Bureau President and CEO Fritz Smith summed up the state of tourism in Centre County with an appropriate metaphor.
“Tourism is brewing here,” he said.
The remark came as the Adventure Bureau and Centre County Board of Commissioners announced 72 local projects and events will receive a combined $840,000 from the 2023-24 Tourism Grant Program, the most awarded in the 21-year history of the program. A record 82 applicants had sought more than $2.3 million.
Gordon Kauffman, Boal City Brewing owner and a driving force behind the planned High Point Skatepark in State College, which received a $12,500 grant, said “something very special is happening in this community.”
“People that care about making the Centre Region a better place to live and in turn an incredible place to visit are coming to the fore. From fly-fishing to mountain biking, paddling to Alpine skiing and hiking to skateboarding, this is our home and it’s an amazing place to live and visit.”
The record total is itself a signal that tourism has rebounded after the pandemic-induced economic downturns of 2020 and 2021, when roughly half of this year’s amount was awarded. The grant program is funded by a portion of the 5% local hotel occupancy tax authorized by the county —so the more hotel rooms are booked, the more money available for the program designed to boost initiatives and facilities that drive tourism and improve quality of life.
“We look back when we were all wearing masks and standing up here and talking about how wonderful it would be to actually get back into a position where we can operate again and have the tourism potential that we know we should have,” Commissioner Steve Dershem said. “We have that now. We’re back. We’re back and we’re vibrant.”
Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Higgins noted that projects receiving funds are located in all corners of the county, from Philipsburg to Millheim, Pine Grove Mills to Howard and points in between.
“Having served on the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau board and the independent Tourism Grant Review Committee, I have seen close up how these grants help create stronger communities and improve the quality of life here in Centre County,” Higgins said.
Receiving a grant for the second year, Happy Valley Comic and Collectibles Convention co-founder Thomas Range said the funding for the inaugural event in February at the Nittany Valley Sports Centre allowed for advertising that otherwise would not have been possible. That included sending postcards and posters to every comic book and game shop in Pennsylvania and other conventions, as well as buying ads on local sites, social media and a website dedicated to comic cons.
“Because of those ads we had vendors and celebrities asking us ‘hey, can we come to your convention?’ This would not have been possible without the tourism grant,” Range said.
Organizers expected about 100 vendors and 1,000 attendees. Instead they saw double for both, with vendors and attendees coming from all over the East Coast and Midwest. And at the next event in February 2024, while the vendor space cannot grow much beyond 100, Range said he anticipates 3,000 to 4,000 visitors as the Comic Con received an $11,000 grant for marketing.
“With this new grant we’ll be able to build on what we already have established and reach out farther than we had last year,” Range said. “With the continued support of the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau, our prime directive will be to explore new ways to engage attendees, seek out new vendors, celebrities and artists and boldly succeed where no con has gone before. With the bureau’s help, this convention is going to make sure we live long and prosper.”
Centre LGBTQA Support Network was among the first-time recipients, with a $6,000 grant to market State College Pride. The event has grown rapidly since the first edition was held in 2021, drawing more than 4,000 people in 2022, including a number of out-of-town visitors, Cat Cooke, executive director of the Centre LGBTQA Support Network, said.
That number is expected to continue growing with this year’s Pride event on June 10. Cooke said at this time last year about 225 people had registered to participate in the Pride parade. More than 500 marchers — not including floats and vehicles — have already signed up for this year’s parade.
“Not only is Pride a good event for the local economy, but it sends a clear message that Centre County is a diverse and inclusive place where LGBT+ folks and family are seen, heard and accepted,” Cooke said. “This type of inclusivity benefits not only the LGBT+ community but all of us as a whole.”
Another first time recipient is Centre Kitchen Collective, a nonprofit recently cofounded by Centre Markets owner Sabine Carey and Webster’s Bookstore Cafe owner Elaine Meder-Wilgus “to build local resilience by cultivating the connection between our local food scene and our local agriculture.” It will create an incubator commercial kitchen and food hub in Pine Grove Mills. The first phase of the project, opening in the fall, will create a local food retail store.
With support from a $10,000 tourism grant, Centre Kitchen Collective also will launch Centre of the Table, which Carey described as “a hyper-local version of a meal kit.” In addition to locally grown and produced foods, the kits will feature seasonal recipes by Pine Grove Hall chef Tory Glossner and videos profiling local farmers and their conservation practices. The initiative also will include a series of suppers at Pine Grove Hall, with the local food and farmers included at the center of the table.
“Happy Valley already offers a growing number of agritourism opportunities to visit local farms,” Carey said. “This initiative will expand on that by giving our community an easy and also fun way to incorporate local food on the table both at home and out at restaurants. I’m excited to grow our centre of the table project, especially in the future by partnering with additional local restaurants and food service providers.”
Commissioner Amber Concepcion said the pandemic and economic downturn showed just how important tourism is to the local economy. The resurgence, meanwhile, highlights how varied the attractions in the county are.
“This has become a corridor that draws people for all different kinds of activities, from mountain biking to hiking to the new skateboard park that is being planned to all the brew pubs and restaurants and historical sites throughout the region,” Concepcion said. We’ve just seen a remarkable diversification of the kind of visitation and tourism and recreational opportunities that are here for people coming in to visit our community as well as those of us who live here in Centre County and call this place home.”
2023-24 Tourism Grant Recipients:
- Bryce Jordan Center — $10,000 for promoter incentives
- Bryce Jordan Center — $10,000 for digital and social media marketing
- Happy Valley Women’s Cycling — $16,000 for marketing the Seasons of Rothrock race series
- State College Downtown Improvement District — $8,000 for IRONMAN related event marketing
- Bellefonte Art Museum — $22,500 for marketing of permanent and visiting exhibits
- Centre LGBTQA Support Network — $6,000 for the marketing of Pride Week
- Philipsburg American Legion Post 437 — $5,000 for mural painting beautification project
- Haines Township — $3,900 to market the Dutch Fall Festival
- Howard Volunteer Fire Company — $3,000 to market the Punkin’ Chunkin’ Festival
- Arts Fest and First Night –$40,000 to market both events
- The Makery — $2,500 for studio marketing
- Advent Historical Society — $1,500 for marketing to expand audiences for musical events at the historic church
- Rowland Theater –$13,000 to move concession stand and ticket both to adjacent building in order to stay open after the movies so people have a place to gather.
- Stage at Talleyrand — $10,000 in support of design, planning work
- Art Alliance of Central PA — $3,000 to market its workshop series
- Re Farm Café — $3,000 to market the Taste of Happy Valley Culinary Crawl
- Nittany Mountain Biking Association — $18,000 to support Phase II-B of Harvest Fields
- Moshannon Valley EMS — $14,000 to market Philipsburg Heritage Days
- Happy Valley Comic Con — $11,000 to market the second annual event
- Historic Bellefonte, Inc. — $40,000 for event and general marketing
- Nittany Valley Symphony — $5,000 to market symphony performances
- Nittany Performing Arts Center — $10,000 to support the development of a capital campaign for the proposed center
- Arboretum at Penn State — $8,000 to market facilities and special events
- Way Fruit Farm — $5,000 to market Art in the Orchard
- Discovery Space of Central PA — $15,000 for digital and print media to promote workshops
- Tempest Productions — $15,000 to market Theatre and Dance Fest
- People’s Choice Festival — $12,000 to market the event
- Palmer Museum of Art — $17,000 to help market the new museum
- Centre County Library & Historical Museum –$35,000 to continue the restoration of the Howard Street porch
- Centre Volunteers in Medicine — $15,000 to market the mini-triathlon to a broader audience
- PA Environmental Council —$2,500 to promote several theme bike routes in the county
- Clearwater Conservancy — $4,000 to promote trails and land access in Rothrock State Forest
- Clearwater Conservancy –$6,000 to market the Centered Outdoors Program
- State College Choral Society — $2,500 to market concerts
- Happy Valley Improv — $18,000 to market the third annual Happy Valley Improv XL
- Millheim Walkfest of Art and Music (rebranded as SummerFest) — $6,250 to market the event
- Ten Thousand Villages State College —$2,000 for special event marketing
- Grange Encampment and Fair — $25,000 to market the 2023 Grange Fair
- Tussey Mountain — $5,000 to market WingFest
- Snow Shoe Rails to Trails –$10,000 to produce marketing assets: rack cards and maps
- State College Borough — $12,500 to help with the construction of an action skate park
- State College Borough — $6,000 to market events in MLK Plaza
- Tussey Mountainback Ultramarathon –$6,500 to market the 50-mile relay race
- Center for the Performing Arts — $18,000 to market CPA events
- Philipsburg Revitalization Corp. –$10,000 to market PRC events
- Roland Curtin Foundation –$17,500 for multiple marketing tactics to promote the historic site
- Wildlife for Everyone Foundation — $4,000 to advertise the Great Outdoor Picnic
- Centre Region Parks & Rec — $3,000 for marketing to promote Millbrook Marsh
- Centre County Farmland Trust — $5,000 to market the Farm Routes initiative
- 3 Dots Downtown — 20,000 for facility infrastructure improvements
- Apple Hill Antiques —$3,000 to produce Centre Region Antiques Road Trip rack cards and maps
- Rooted Farmstead — $4,000 to produce an agritourism experience master plan
- Central PA Tasting Trail — $15,000 for marketing to promote the Trail
- State Theatre — $33,000 for marketing, promoter incentives and infrastructure improvements
- Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra — $4,000 for concert series marketing
- Central PA 4th Fest — $40,000 to market and promote the event
- Gorinto Productions — $10,000 to market the Rhoneymeade music festival
- Climb Nittany — $10,000 for general marketing and installation of a bike repair and bike station
- The Crooked House –$8,000 for final installation of the historic home sculpture in Milesburg
- Centre Film Festival –$25,000 for marketing tactics to support the festival
- Centre County Historical Society — $9,000 for marketing and advertising
- Centre County Historical Society — $10,000 for restoration work on Centre Furnace Mansion
- Potter Township — $6,000 for the installation of chain link fencing and field grading
- Happy Valley Music Fest — $25,000 to market and promote the event
- Bellefonte B&B –$12,000 to promote Bellefonte Victorian Christmas
- HaVAC llc — $7,500 for a facility development plan for an aquatics facility
- Your Cigar Den — $6,000 to market HavanaFest
- Centre Kitchen Collective — $10,000 to market the Centre of the Table project, which will increase the visibility of the local food system
- Mountaintop Swimming Pool — $5,000 for facility improvements
- Millheim Township — $10,000 to market Route 45 Getaways
- Centre Stage — $10,000 to promote events and a theatre sneak preview event on Aug. 29
- Boal Estate Museum — $16,000 for AC and ADA improvements to the Boal Barn
