If you love chocolate, the place to be today is the eastern Iowa town of Mount Vernon.
The 7th Annual Mount Vernon Chocolate Stroll runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the city’s First Street, which features several businesses that specialize in sweet treats.
Joe Jennison is with the Mount Vernon/Lisbon Community Development Group. “We have several chocolate vendors in town…we offer chocolate shortbread and we’ve got a company called Mount Vernon Confections that does chocolate ice cream and they make all sorts of chocolate treats,” Jennison said. “We have a number of stores up and down the street that sell chocolate automatically, so it seems to be a good fit for us.”
The events also include a parade prior to a playing of the original 1971 movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” at Mount Vernon’s Bijou Theatre. “We’ll do a Willy Wonka chocolate parade…people dress up like their favorite character or anything associated with chocolate,” Jennison said.
The local pet store will even have a chocolate lab petting zoo. There’s also live music throughout the day at the First Street Community Center.