This Week Around Happy Valley: Welcome to Arts Week
There is usually something for everyone happening around Happy Valley, but this week takes things to another level.
With Arts Fest taking over downtown and campus, People’s Choice returning to Boalsburg, Philipsburg Heritage Days underway, and events popping up at museums, theaters, libraries, farms, restaurants and music venues, Happy Valley is in full Arts Week mode.
Here’s to the Hosts: A Thank You to the People Behind Arts Week
By The Connect Crew | July 8, 2026 This week, Happy Valley becomes what it was always meant to be. Downtown fills with artists. The Pennsylvania Military Museum grounds in Boalsburg come alive with the return of People’s Choice Festival. Philipsburg celebrates its heritage. Way Fruit Farm invites families into the orchard. Musicians take stages […]
Stirred, Not Stuck in Happy Valley: What We’ve Built So Far
Here’s the honest origin story. I just wanted to host cocktail parties. I texted Liz Grove: two hours, second floor of Pine Grove Hall, good drinks, good people, nothing fancier than that. I wanted a space where people in Happy Valley could show up, relax, and actually talk to each other, no agenda required.
This Week Around Happy Valley: Lift for Life, Central PA 4thFest and America 250!
The forecast is heating up, and so is the Happy Valley events calendar. The Fourth of July and America 250 bring fireworks, parades, and plenty of red, white, and blue to the region.
July Is Happy Valley’s Best Welcome Wagon
From fireworks and Arts Fest to orchards, trails, and small-town traditions, here’s how to experience the valley like a local.
If you want to get to know where you live, July is one of the easiest months to start. The whole valley steps outside.
This Week Around Happy Valley: Outdoor Concerts, WE ARE Weekend, and Get to East End Social
The final full week of June brings extra people into Happy Valley, with Penn State alumni returning for WE ARE Weekend and incoming first-year students and their families beginning to arrive for summer session.
You’ll also find plenty of outdoor programs, family activities and music on the calendar. And, if you haven’t checked it out yet, make time to enjoy East End Social while you can!
Happy Valley Hacks
Twelve of us met at Pine Grove Hall on Sunday, June 7, and turned a regular summer evening into a shared Happy Valley story session. We ate, talked, and covered the walls with tip cards spelling out specific summer routines people already use in this place.
This Week Around Happy Valley: Juneteenth Celebrations and Summer Officially Arrives
Summer officially arrives this Sunday, so for once it’s not just a feeling, it’s on the calendar. Whether you want to spend the weekend listening to live music outside, taking the kids down to Bellefonte, marking Juneteenth with the community, or just finding an excuse to get out of the house, there’s a lot to choose from.
Here are some of the highlights happening around the area this week.
Happy Valley is Raising the Flag
This Summer, we mark the 250th anniversary of American independence, an occasion politicized by some (which is their right – it is, after all, a free country), but one I choose to celebrate as a milestone in our remarkably successful, still-evolving experiment in the messy business of organizing humans into something resembling civic order. Come July, many of us, whether in righteous anger or dogged optimism, will fervently wave the American flag in recognition of two and a half centuries spent pursuing a more perfect union. As we do, I’ll think back to the heyday of Fourth Fest, our region’s wonderful and widely sought-out Independence Day celebration that at one time claimed the title of world’s largest all-volunteer fireworks display. Our people are the fuel that powers our place, and the same spirit of energetic volunteerism driving the nighttime spectacle that lights up the Fourth of July will, this weekend, make possible a rapidly-growing event that’s putting another pin in Happy Valley on national maps.
