Green Fair Folk Festival: A Visitor Guide
An August evening on the convent lawn, with folk music, fair-trade booths, wagon rides, and a 25-cent peanut butter sandwich. The Franciscan Sisters' quietly distinctive take on a summer festival.
It is a free, family-friendly community festival hosted by the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls on the west lawn of St. Francis Convent, held on an evening in early August. The focus is earth-friendly living: green exhibits, fair-trade goods, local produce and artisans, and folk music. Confirm the current year's date at fslf.org.
A festival with a point of view
Most town festivals sell funnel cakes. This one sells a 25-cent Franciscan peanut butter and jelly sandwich and skips the deep fryer entirely. The Green Fair Folk Festival is the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls' annual community celebration, and its whole premise is living lightly on the earth — a natural fit for an order with a long environmental streak. The Sisters' Green Committee started it in 2006 to share earth-friendly ideas with the convent and the town, and it has run every summer since.
What you'll find
The fair spreads across the west lawn of St. Francis Convent on an early-August evening. Expect exhibits and vendors built around earth-friendly products, "green" education, fair-trade items, seasonal produce, and the work of local artisans, with folk and acoustic music from students and faculty of the St. Francis Music Center and other local performers. It is free, and it leans family: kids' activities and free face painting are part of the mix.
The convent grounds
Part of the appeal is the setting. During the fair you can take a tour of the Sacred Heart Chapel and ride a horse-drawn wagon around the St. Francis campus, a rare public look at the grounds of the motherhouse. The Franciscan Sisters have been part of Little Falls for generations, and the fair is one of the few evenings the community is invited onto the lawn.
The Green Fair is held on a single evening in early August, and the exact date is set each year. Check the Franciscan Sisters' site or the Little Falls events calendar for the current date and schedule. Admission is free.
More of the local calendar
The Green Fair is one of the more distinctive dates on the Little Falls events calendar, alongside the June Dam Festival and September's Arts & Crafts Fair. The Sisters' long presence is part of the county's broader Catholic heritage.
Michael Paycer
Michael Paycer grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. Today he is a Senior SQL Server Database Administrator Consultant based in Saint Cloud, and he keeps this Little Falls guide as a personal project about his hometown.
Sources & further reading
- Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls — Green Fair
- Explore Minnesota — Green Fair Folk Festival
- Global Sisters Report — Green Fair Folk Festival
External sites are provided for reference. Event dates, hours, and admission change annually — confirm current details with the official source before visiting.