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Vendor for a Day at the Bloomsburg Fair

BLOOMSBURG — There are more than 1,000 vendors at the Bloomsburg Fair, and they all work very long hours. Today, Newswatch 16 decided to see exactly what ...

BLOOMSBURG -- There are more than 1,000 vendors at the Bloomsburg Fair, and they all work very long hours.

Today, Newswatch 16 decided to see exactly what it takes to work at one of the fair's busiest food stands.

Bissinger's Apple Dumplings, just the name seems to draw a crowd at the Bloomsburg Fair. They sell apple and peach dumplings with cinnamon or vanilla ice cream. Between peeling the fruit, wrapping the dumplings and scooping the ice cream, there's a lot to do.

As Bissinger's vendor for the day, the first step was to put my apron on and take the pits out of peaches. Easy, right? Wrong!

"You're going to stick the pitter down into the center of the peach. Twist when you feel the pit. Do you have it?" asked Cheri Bissinger.

"Yeah," Nikki said.

But she didn't. This was harder than she thought it would be. After a few tries she got it. She pitted while her new co-worker Shannon, peeled.

"I'm getting pretty good at this," Nikki said.

"Don't start bragging," photographer Tom Durant said.

Then it came time to peel the peaches, which was very hard for Nikki.

"So usually it takes the girls, I don't know, maybe 30 seconds to peel a peach," Bissinger said.

Not Nikki.

The next part was easier: peeling apples. Bissinger's uses a machine and the process is a lot quicker than peeling peaches.

"Depending upon the day of the week and how busy we are, we could go through 800-1,800," Bissinger said.

Then it came time to wrap the dumplings. Between taking the dumplings out of the oven. And scooping ice cream, these folks work hard!

"You did perfect, perfect. I couldn't have done it any better myself," a customer said.

He just said that because Nikki gave him extra ice cream. Let's ask the boss what she thinks.

"Nikki did very well on her first day on the job. I don't think we'll hire her to peel peaches, but you did a pretty good job wrapping," Bissinger said.

Being a vendor is much harder than it looks!

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