Founded as the Polegate Scarecrows Community Fund in November 2019, the Polegate Community Foundation established three years later in November 2022. The fund was set up after the running of two successful Scarecrow Festivals!
Sadly, the Sussex Downs Scarecrow Festival 2024 was the last event of its kind that we hosted. Back in 2017 when we began to plan the very first Polegate Scarecrow Festival we didn’t know how popular it would be and that we would be running it as an annual event for so many years.
From 2018, Polegate saw 7 different Scarecrow Festivals, Willingdon saw 4, Hampden Park saw 3 and Ratton were included in 2. Over those 7 years our Scarecrow events raised an amazing £6,753.94 for 9 different charities that operate in or around Polegate.
Unfortunately, the time came where sponsorships weren’t secured, supporters didn’t volunteer, and residents didn’t participate. These reasons forced the Polegate Community Foundation to wrap up this event as it was no longer viable. This was a very difficult decision to make because so many members of our communities loved the annual event taking place.