Oct. 5 and 6, a stray hiker wandering through the trail system approximately 10 miles to the west of uptown Athens will stumble upon an unusual sight: upward of 60 people foraging for fungi, attendees of the second annual Appalachian Understories Fall Fungi Festival.
Madison Donohue, the tourism manager of Appalachian Understories one of the key organizers of the upcoming festival.
“It’s a celebration of all things mushrooms,” Donohue said. “It’s a family-friendly event with a camping option and day passes. We’ll have music and food vendors and art vendors and then all sorts of guided hikes and workshops and tours.”
The Fall Fungi Festival is put on by multiple collaborators, including a planning committee of Athens residents who attended last year's event, hike leaders and a variety of vendors.
“It requires a lot of public outreach,” Donohue said. “We get input on what mushroom species we want to use for the logo each year, and we got feedback last year from the participants about what events they liked and what they didn’t like and how we could make this year better.”
Another collaborator is Lindsey Rudibaugh, executive director and co-founder of Tenderfoot Learning Lab. Rudibaugh and Donohue met in 2018 while hiking the Appalachian Trail and eventually realized their mutual connection to Athens. When Appalachian Understories first began planning the festival, Tenderfoot immediately came to mind as a potential venue.
“Our mission is sustainability education,” Rudibaugh said. “We teach people how to live more sustainability at home, in their personal and in their professional lives.”
Workshops throughout the year encourage this mission. They vary from weeklong commitments to monthlong internships and cover everything from gardening to cooking.
The lab’s focus on food sustainability is another core aspect of the upcoming festival; this year’s event will include cooking demonstrations and food vendors featuring mushrooms from Soulshine Acres, a mushroom farm just outside of Athens.
Anna Kelly and Andy Gedeon founded Soulshine Acres almost five years ago. The pair cultivate a variety of mushrooms for a spectrum of purposes on their forest farm.
“We grow other different culinary mushrooms as well, but … we sell (mushroom) tincture, and then we also sell jewelweed and plantain,” Kelly said.
All of these products are natural remedies to various ailments, ranging from a weak immune system to poison ivy relief. Soulshine Acres thus encourages sustainability both in healthcare and in farming practices.
“It’s a sustainable practice and a way to utilize the forest rather than cutting it down,” Kelly said in reference to the 800 logs present on their farm.
Gedeon looks forward to leading a farm tour as a part of the festival’s itinerary, as well as participating in the many guided hikes offered throughout the weekend.
“It’s a good thing for networking,” he said. “Like-minded individuals with similar interests are able to go there and meet other people they can connect with about the same things.”
The festival will also encourage connection among families, one of the event’s primary demographics according to Donohue.
“There’s something for every level of curiosity and expertise,” Rudibaugh said. “I hope kids have a good time in nature because research shows the more time you spend in nature as a child, the more likely you are to protect and preserve it in adulthood, which is really important to sustainability.”
This year, attendees are encouraged to bring an instrument to play around a campfire Saturday night in exchange for a free festival day pass, further contributing to a fellowship at the end of each day of programming.
Donohue looks forward to seeing the camaraderie of last year’s festival return in full swing.
“I hope we can continue to uplift more folks who are interested in sharing whatever connection they have to mushrooms and allowing them an opportunity to share that with other people,” Donohue said.
