Don’t wait too long to buy tickets

The eighth Downtown Dover Chocolate Walk is coming Saturday, June 8 from 5-7:30 p.m. Tickets are available for $20 from The Emporium, 118 W. Third St., Dover, and the Dover Public Library, 525 N. Walnut St., and online. Each ticket includes a passport, a map and a bag to hold all the collected goodies from 25 stops around town. A filled ticket gets discounts at the after-party at Hoodletown Brewery.

Don’t wait too long to buy tickets, said Jim Gill, director of the library. “It’s always a sellout every year. We’ve never not sold all the available tickets, so it’s a good idea to pick them up soon.”

There also are a couple of slots available for sweet stop hosts, Gill said. To be a hosting location, one need only fill out a form and agree to be available during the walk’s hours. Each sweet stop location will have 250 servings of a sweet treat on hand for visitors. To learn more about becoming a sweet stop location, email Gill at director@doverlibrary.org.

“Upward of 500-700 people participate in the walk every year, so it’s a great thing for businesses to participate in,” Gill said.

Proceeds from the Downtown Dover Chocolate Walk help to fund one of the most anticipated literary events in the area.

“It helps to finance the annual Canal Town Book Festival,” Gill said. “That will be held Oct. 5 at Dover High School. There was a book fair associated with the Canal Dover Festival, but we kind of made this one our own. There are more than 50 authors who participate, offering advice on writing, getting published and finding a literary agent. It’s a big event for anyone who has an interest in writers and writing.”

Some of the participants in this year’s Chocolate Walk include Dover-Phila Heating and Cooling, Elite Tire, First Federal Community Bank, John’s Sweeper Service, Mary Zifer’s Pizza of Dover, the Reeves Museum, St. John’s United Church of Christ, Bibliophile, Eiler’s Candy, Miller’s Creamery, Missions Cafe, One Twenty Seven and Hoodletown Brewery.

The after-party at Hoodletown Brewery will start at 8 p.m. featuring live music from local band Basement Bromance.

“When you bring your Chocolate Walk ticket showing you’ve visited all the locations, you get a discount on food that evening,” Gill said. “It’s a lot of fun and always very popular.”

Though the Chocolate Walk is scheduled from 5-7:30 p.m., you need not worry about rushing too much.

“There’s no right or wrong way to do it,” Gill said. “You can rush through, of course, but it’s nice to take a little time to get to know the people at the sweet stops. You might visit a store you’ve never seen before. It’s a great community family event and always a lot of fun. Some of the treats are to be enjoyed on the spot while others you can take home to try later.”

Passport holders get to vote for their favorite sweet stop, and a Best in Show will be chosen from the vote totals.

The Downtown Dover Chocolate Walk has been held for eight years but is actually older, Gill said. “We skipped 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, so it would be 10 years now.”

The Downtown Dover Chocolate Walk is sponsored by Friends of the Dover Library and the Canal Dover Association.