Wine Walk exits stage left, Spelling Bee enters

1-28-26

By Lauren Royce, Editor
MONTROSE — This year’s Montrose Wine Walk will be the last, but its end will help United Way of Susquehanna County (UWSC) make room for more new programs to better support local youth.
“(The Wine Walk) I think, has come to the point where its best days are behind us and we are ready to move on to other things,” said Tom Follert, regional director of United Way of Susquehanna County.
“I would love to focus my attention onto other things that fit within our mission— we are putting an end to the Wine Walk because we would like to focus on fundraising events that fit our mission, that align with our mission more closely, which is helping children do well.”
In 2019, the Wine Walk was given to United Way in hopes it would be revitalized. But then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and two years were lost. Follert was recruited to help revive the Wine Walk, and assumed his position as regional director at United Way.
“Over the past few years since COVID — it’s always been a nice day in town, but we’ve seen in general attendance has dropped. We’ve tried to be more inclusive with our making sure the businesses here in town were counted as part of our vendors, because we want people to support what we have in town. Because what we have in town is great, we don’t want to see that go away.”
The 5K was introduced as part of the event in 2025.  This year’s Montrose Wine Walk is scheduled for Saturday, May 16.
Follert said he used to work for Chocolates by Leopold, who made and sold the chocolates for the event.
“In 2018 I left there and we gave the Wine Walk, or the Chocolate Wine Festival to the United Way,” Follert said. “We ran that for, I wanna say it was 11 or 12 actual events (before),” he said. “We started it as a fundraiser to help build the library and hospital. We raised over a quarter of a million dollars for those projects over the years and by the time we got to 2018, my wonderful committee of volunteers was tired.”
Before, it was a fenced in event and you had to pay to get in the door, and it felt like a big old block party, Follert said. But the open concept, formatted the same way as Christmas in Montrose, combined with interests shifting to New York’s dispensaries, made the event’s popularity seem to dip.
“We only make people pay if they want to do wine tastings. But the bottom line is, since COVID, people attend events differently,” he said. “Things that were really popular like wine festivals, you’ll notice there aren’t many of them around anymore. So this will be the last Montrose Wine Walk. This will be the last hurrah. It would’ve been last year, but I was convinced that it needed a final, a final send off. And we need to let people know and they should all come out and have a good time.”

Out with the old, in with the new

With the Wine Walk on the way out, United Way’s new County Wide Spelling Bee is on its way in with the grand finale competition on March 26.
“We’re transitioning to the first of our new flagship, the first year of our new flagship fundraiser and event,” Follert said. “And that is our countywide spelling bee, which fits our mission so much better.”
There will be six individual spelling bees for fourth and fifth graders at each school. Fourth graders will have a game show style “bee” similar to Blue Ridge’s no-pressure “bee.”
“The kids get up, if they spell a word wrong, they just don’t get the points,” Follert said. “They sit back down, they learn how to do it. Fifth grade is going to be, you stand up there, you spell a word. If you get it wrong, you sit back down and you’re out.”
The top three spellers from each school will go on to a countywide spelling meet, with a chance to win the $1,000 prize.
“Not only are we focusing on the importance of spelling and education, but we’re putting some money behind it so the kids get excited about it,” Follert said.
All districts— Elk Lake, Lathrop Elementary, Choconut Elementary, Mountain View, Blue Ridge, Susquehanna and Forest City— will all have students from fourth and fifth grade participating in the spelling bee.
“We have for years had a second grade spelling bee,” said Brent Soden, principal of Susquehanna Elementary School. He said Susquehanna was really excited to be participating in something for the fourth and fifth graders.
“It’s one of those things (where) it’s some skin in the game for them because the prize money is pretty big,” Soden said, and it’s a great opportunity to show students “if you work hard toward this academic challenge, there’s a reward.”
Soden said he hopes United Way will continue this event for years to come.
“We’re super excited to have the opportunity, Blue Ridge has participated in the spelling bee with United Way previously,” said Mike Zach, Elementary principal at Forest City. “It’s really great for our students to have the opportunity to highlight academic achievement— We don’t get a lot of opportunities to work with other schools, so we’re pretty excited our fifth graders get to compete with other county fifth graders.”
Zach said it would likely be around the end of February once the school gets lists of competing students, and gives a pretest, then competitors will be chosen from there. Out of a 100-word list, 30 will be chosen.
Forest City’s initial spelling bee will be between March 2 and March 13 at school for the fourth and fifth graders.
“Our plan is to have some of our younger students be there for that competition,” Zach said, “so they can see what they can look forward to.” It also will give them support while they’re on stage, he said.
“(It’s) pretty neat the United Way is working on sponsorships as well with local businesses,” Zach said, getting the schools and communities working together. “The United Way does a ton for our school— to give back to them and partner with them to do this, was an amazing thing.”
Zach said the spelling bee was a great way to get United Way’s name out there, tying it back to its most dear mission and its community.
UWSC already is a participant in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and does literacy kits with children to help them transition from preschool to kindergarten. There’s also the Real Men Read program, and Nurse’s Pantry and See to Succeed, all of which are geared toward helping children be set up for success in life.
Real Men Read, which this month was Real Quilters Read, gave kids at Susquehanna Elementary mini quilts from A Stitch in Time Quilt Guild. Nurse’s Pantry ensures kids have hygiene products and clean clothes. See to Succeed brings eye doctors to the schools and gives full eye exams to any kids that need it, with no cost to the families. “We bill their insurance if they have it, and if they don’t, we pick up the cost,” Follert said.
UWSC also has 13 little free libraries planted around the county, and some will be getting fixed up in the near future.
“We’re actually working with the Green Technology Center over in Elk Lake to refurbish three of our originals that are seven or eight years old that are right along the busy roads, and they’re just falling apart,” Follert said. “So we’re going to remake those this spring.”