Belgrade's fall festival returns Saturday for its 63rd year, featuring the Panthers homecoming parade, food trucks, an annual car show and a grand finale appearance by the Budweiser Clydesdales.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is organized by the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce. Executive Director Erin Hoppe said the festival is one of the ways the chamber brings the community together.
WATCH: Volunteers setting up for the Belgrade Fall Festival
"Everything that you do and everywhere that you go, you will either find someone that you went to school with, or neighbors with or within the business community. It's a really tight knit group and I feel like it's a really welcoming small town hospitality," Hoppe said.
The festival kicks off with a pancake breakfast hosted by Belgrade High School's ProStart team, a two-year, industry-backed culinary arts and restaurant management program that combines cooking, business administration and on-the-job opportunities in the food industry.
Kortney Douma, a family and consumer science teacher at Belgrade High School and Montana's 2026 Teacher of the Year, leads the ProStart team. Douma has taught in the school district for 16 years.
"I have always been drawn to teaching and feeling like you can give back in a way.. Talk about your legacy and how you can make an impact in the world... and this has always been my way of doing that," Douma said.
Douma said she sees the pancake breakfast as an opportunity to open the school's doors to the wider community.
"I like to bring the community into the high school for fall festival just because I feel like it's good to bring people into our home.. And we have an incredible career and technical education department and I really want to show off what we do here," Douma said.
The breakfast also serves as a fundraiser for the ProStart team, which needs to raise around $16,000 to cover travel costs for state and national competitions.
"Our national trip is never guaranteed, and we have to put in the footwork. So we put in a lot of time, we have a lot of footwork, we have practices after school but it's never guaranteed so we have to earn it," Douma said.
Attendees can also explore small local businesses throughout the festival. Volunteers were setting up at the Belgrade Senior Center Friday ahead of the event.
