After more than 50 years of offering a summertime carnival, FFO Inc., a local community service organization, will instead present a festival, featuring live music, food, children's games and more, on Monday, Aug. 14, through Saturday, Aug. 19, at Schaffner Park, located at the corner of Poplar Avenue and Water Street in Hummelstown.

This year's festival is designed to highlight local vendors. "It has always been called the carnival, but this year it is the festival," said Alan Detweiler, FFO president. "We took out the word carnival because that (implies) rides. We wanted to involve the community more with local vendors and booster clubs."

Among the attractions will be arts and crafts, goat petting, face painting and demonstrations by a tactical K-9 unit from central Pennsylvania and the Hummelstown Fire Department. There will be free nightly entertainment; attendees should bring lawn chairs for seating.

"The Air National Guard and the Army National Guard from Fort Indiantown Gap are coming," Detweiler noted. "The Air National Guard is doing a cornhole competition for the week, and the Army National Guard is bringing a climbing wall for the kids."

Also featured during the festival will be a car show, a display of state police cars and motorcycles from the Pennsylvania State Police Museum in Hershey and an ambulance from Penn State Health.

FFO will offer a full menu of festival foods, including hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken fingers, ice cream, funnel cakes and popcorn. A beer garden will also be added for the first time this year in an enclosed basketball court. No alcohol is permitted in the park.

FFO began as the Fuzzy Few Organization, which formed during Hummelstown's 200th anniversary in 1962. "A couple of guys wanted to form a civic organization, and they all had a beard," Detweiler explained. "So they were called the Fuzzy Few. At the time, it was all male. That's how it all started."

After playing an active role during the anniversary, the men in the club decided to apply for an official charter and operate as a nonprofit organization. The group filed papers at the Dauphin County Court House in December of 1962, and on June 13, 1963, the Fuzzy Few Organization's charter was approved. In 1991, the organization was renamed and incorporated as FFO Inc.

The goal of the organization since its founding has been to establish and support community and youth-related programs. FFO currently supports Hummelstown youth football, cheerleading and basketball programs, as well as the Hummelstown Fire Department, the Hummelstown Food Pantry the Lower Dauphin sports booster clubs and many other groups and programs. FFO also awards college scholarships to Lower Dauphin High School students.

"We truly are involved in basically anything the town of Hummelstown sponsors," Detweiler said.

For more information about FFO and the festival, including a list of musical acts, visit http://www.facebook.com/FFO1962.