BRIEF: Monastery's Raspberry Festival to take place Aug. 3

Raspberry Festival/Courtesy of St. Gertrude's — Raspberry Festival/Courtesy of St. Gertrude’s

The 22nd Annual Raspberry Festival at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho will take place Aug. 3 and will include numerous events, including an arts and crafts fair, live music, a kids’ carnival, quilt show, Fun Run & Walk and chapel tours.

The 5K/10K Fun Run & Walk will kick off the festival at 8 a.m. The course begins at the monastery museum and follows a scenic, out-and-back paved road with stunning views of the Seven Devils Mountains, Camas Prairie, the Gospel Hump and Buffalo Hump Wilderness areas. All participants will receive a Raspberry Festival t-shirt, according to an announcement.

The Quilt Show and Arts and Crafts Fair will feature local artisans and the entire festival will, of course, have lots of food including a pancake breakfast, grilled hamburgers, raspberry shortcake, jam and products.

Annually the Raspberry Festival draws approximately 3,000 visitors. The event is a fundraiser for the Historical Museum at St. Gertrude, which works to preserve the monastery’s rich history.

Tracy Simmons

Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of FāVS.News, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.