Celebrate Dunedin’s Orange Festival as they continue to celebrate their long history of orange groves at the 10th annual Orange Fest on Saturday, July 13. The event will take place in Edgewater Park with fun for all ages. The event will feature a Brew Off Craft Beer Contest as well as the 5th annual Pinup Girl Contest, along with live music, local food vendors, and a silent auction of an Orange Bonnet. The fun starts at 10 a.m. and goes until 9 p.m. Stick around to watch the sunset over the marina and then enjoy the Orange Fest After Dark, featuring adult beverages and live music.
Proceeds from Dunedin’s Orange Festival proceeds will help the Dunedin History Museum to follow its mission to educate and preserve the community’s rich cultural heritage. Funds are used to continue educational programming such as museum exhibits, traveling exhibits to local schools and community centers and create exciting projects for summer camp students. (Photo of former Dunedin Festival Orange Queen)
These programs directly serve and benefit the students and community of Dunedin. Because of that, citrus is represented in both the museum’s permanent Dunedin exhibit and our new World War II exhibit, “Pomp and Circumstance: Dunedin, Pinellas County, and World War II.” Florida’s first orange juice concentrate company was in Dunedin.
The 10th Annual Orange Festival proceeds provide the Dunedin History Museum to follow its mission to educate and preserve the community’s rich cultural heritage. Funds are used to continue educational programming such as museum exhibits, traveling exhibits to local schools and community centers and create exciting projects for summer camp students. These programs directly serve and benefit the students and community of Dunedin.
In 1935, orange grove pioneer B.C. Skinner founded Citrus Concentrates, Inc. (CCI) in 1935 and spent the next three years experimenting with his product. By the 1940s, World War II in Europe offered him a new opportunity. As German U-Boats were blocking trade routes in the United Kingdom, citizens were suffering from a shortage of the vitamin C that fresh citrus from the Mediterranean provided. The government caught wind of B.C.’s product, built him a $1.1 million concentrate plant in Dunedin and from there, he produced his concentrate. By the end of 1944, CCI produced and shipped over 28 million cans of concentrate and earned $4 million. Learn more at the events website here. Review details on last year’s Orange Festival here.