By Gia Myers • Posted September 3, 2024

This September, AbbeyFest – the outdoor festival of faith, fellowship, and contemporary Catholic/Christian music – celebrates its 10-year anniversary. And the hundreds of dedicated AbbeyFest volunteers who make the event happen each year are marking the milestone.

Looking back on the history of AbbeyFest, life-long music lover and one of the founders of AbbeyFest, Mark Griswold, says he was inspired by a music festival he attended as a teenager growing up in Louisiana. The festival took place at St. Joseph Abbey outside New Orleans and was a youth-only event.

When Griswold moved to Pennsylvania in 2002 to become a youth minister at St. Norbert Parish in Paoli, he often walked the grounds at nearby Daylesford Abbey while praying the rosary.

During those walks, he felt inspired to create a music festival like those he attended, but in his heart, he “wanted something family-oriented” so that everyone could come together and praise the Lord.

 “I just had a feeling it was going to happen,” said Griswold of his dream. “I knew people wanted a place to celebrate faith and hear good music.”

In 2013 Griswold – with the help of parishioners Dave and Martha Wilbur, now the heads of production for AbbeyFest – managed to book Catholic musical artist Matt Maher for a concert at St. Norbert Parish.

Maher was well-known to Griswold for recording the hit song “Your Grace is Enough,” what Griswold calls “the most prolific song to impact Christian music that came from a Catholic.”

“They packed the gym with 500 people, and Matt Maher rocked it out,” said Deacon Hank Fila, remembering that 2013 concert. Deacon Fila has been the development director of AbbeyFest for the last five years.

AbbeyFest was born the following year, 2014, when the event moved to Daylesford Abbey and 1,000 people attended. It has grown consistently year after year despite a hiatus in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Griswold said he’s amazed by how “grace abounds” at AbbeyFest each year.  “People have deep experiences of the Lord and have conversions,” he said. “Music touches the heart and soul at a deep level that other avenues don’t.”

This year, AbbeyFest takes place on Saturday, September 14 at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli. Gates open at 12 noon for the day-long festival, which includes food trucks, 150 religious vendors and artists, kid-friendly activities, music, Eucharistic Adoration, Confession and Holy Mass celebrated by Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez.

Maher has been the headlining performer at every AbbeyFest, except for one year due to a scheduling conflict. He will be the headliner again this year.

For about the last five years, AbbeyFest has been livestreamed worldwide by Shalom World, which sends a four-person crew to cover the event.

Pulling off an event of this magnitude requires about 375 volunteers. Ed Grady, director of operations for AbbeyFest, sends out the call for volunteers each year around mid-July.

Putting on the event is “hundreds of hours of work,” he said.“And they show up,” he said of the dedicated army of volunteers.

“AbbeyFest is a foretaste of heaven, and that’s why I come every year,” said longtime volunteer Kathleen Heil. “It’s my favorite day of the year, except for Christmas and Easter.”

A nurse and parishioner of St. Eleanor Parish in Collegeville, Heil volunteers in the first-aid tent. She first heard about the need for AbbeyFest volunteers about eight years ago from a friend who was already involved. Heil has volunteered every year since.

About 50 volunteers are needed for event set-up. More volunteers arrive early on Saturday morning of the event, and about 60 volunteers stay until around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday for clean-up. Some volunteers even come back around 9:00 a.m. on Sunday to finish cleaning up.

Grady gladly donates many hours to make the event happen, saying, “the day is life changing for people.”

“They love the music, Mass, Adoration, the camaraderie. Some people who have been away from the Church find God that day,” he said.

“AbbeyFest depends on good people making the event happen. It’s a team effort,” said Griswold, who’s worked at St. Norbert Parish for 22 years now, currently as director of family faith formation and director of liturgical music.

“We’ll do this as long as the Lord wants it to go on,” Griswold said of the future of AbbeyFest. “That’s all in his plan. People say they find the day a blessing.”

For more information about this year’s AbbeyFest, visit the website at https://theabbeyfest.com/.