CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — For the past year, we’ve seen a lot of canceled events because of COVID-19, events that directly supported jobs and generated revenue for local businesses. 

“We had the festival last year and the next week is when the governor shut down the state so that was our last festival, and then this is our first festival again as we move forward,” said Citrus County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Josh Wooten. 

Saturday’s rain and humidity did not prevent people from coming out and enjoying the first public event since the pandemic: the 2020 Floral City Strawberry Festival.

“I think there's pent up demand of like, if COVID didn’t get us, a little bit of rain is not going to,” Wooten said. 

The event was more than just a welcome back party, it gave local businesses a place to shine again all while enjoying some strawberries.

“This typically brings in 10, 12, best year’s been about 15,000 people over two days,” Wooten said. 

Wooten said an event like this also brings in about a $1 million back into the community, something vendors like Cantina Riviera Mexican Restaurant owner Angel Lewis said she's been looking forward to since the start of the pandemic.

“This is what helps us survive, so we are so happy that they decided,” she said, “There’s a lot of them that have been canceled, so we’re so excited that this one decided to stick with it and let us do this.” 

The chamber said the decision to hold the event this year came with a lot of consideration

“We looked at metrics in the community, as far as spread, care, available and we decided that the numbers were good enough for us to move forward with a lot of precautions,” Wooten. 

Throughout the park, social distancing lines were marked on the grass, with safety signs placed throughout, and several hands free sanitation stations were placed outside of the mobile bathrooms. 

The Chamber also added "Tiny the Tank," a small car with hands free hand sanitizer to drive around the park for convenience. 

The next public event the county is scheduled for is the manatee festival. This is the county’s biggest event and had already been pushed back this year. The Manatee Festival is schedule for the end of the month.