Collaton St Mary's Harvest Festival

School children celebrate the Harvest Festival

Schoolchildren at Collaton St Mary Church of England Primary School celebrate the Harvest Festival by decorating the hall and putting on a play. The tradition is to give thanks for the harvest by bringing food, fruit and vegetables into school, decorating window sills and the church before holding a service of thanksgiving and the goods being distributed among the most vulnerable in society. The children act out Joseph's dreams from the Bible's Book of Genesis.

Collaton St Mary is a small village in Torbay north of Paignton. Reverend Stephen Hawker of Morwenstow in Cornwall introduces the Harvest Festival to parishioners in 1843 giving thanks to God for the plentiful harvest. Harvest time is held on the day of the full or harvest moon close to the autumn equinox of 22 or 23 September. It is also a pagan tradition coinciding with the harvest moon. In the US it is on the fourth Thursday of November and known as Thanksgiving Day.