Latino Heritage Festival enjoys new site

August 27, 2017 at 12:07a.m.

CAMPBELL

For the first time, a popular cultural festival has moved its location, but that’s likely to bode well for logistics in the short term and add diverse interest in the long term, an organizer says.

“We wanted to get a different atmosphere to see how it worked out,” Victoria DeJesus said Saturday about the decision to move the seventh annual Latino Heritage Festival from downtown Youngstown to Roosevelt Park in Campbell. “We’re also getting a lot of people from Pennsylvania and Youngstown.”

About 10 vendors and plenty of entertainment are the event’s main staples, said DeJesus, festival president. She added that having the gathering in Campbell this year is helpful also because several main thoroughfares in downtown Youngstown are closed for road construction.

The fest continues from noon to 8 p.m. today in the park, just off Struthers-Liberty and McCartney roads. There is no admission fee, but attendees are encouraged to make donations. Funds will go toward scholarships to send two Latino high-school students to Youngstown State University, DeJesus noted.

“We wanted to bring our Latino heritage into the city and share our food and entertainment,” DeJesus said in outlining the event’s other primary purpose.

Preceding the family-friendly fest was a parade that began at nearby St. Rose of Lima/St. Lucy Church and featured members of the Latin American Motorcycle Association and Tainos Motorcycle Club Inc., she said.

Attendees enjoyed a cloudless day, low humidity and temperatures in the mid-70s Saturday afternoon as they took advantage of the festival’s many offerings. They included a one-hour Zumba class, courtesy of Mercy Health’s Stepping Out program, which provides free fitness activities in collaboration with several community facilities, and which include dancing, aerobics and strength training, along with free health screenings.

Free blood-pressure screenings will be available today, noted Doris Bullock, Stepping Out’s coordinator.

Merchandise for sale includes colorful bracelets, beads, necklaces and pendants, T-shirts, small Puerto Rican flags and toys. On display are a slew of cultural handmade items.

“It took my niece nine months to paint and finish it,” Rose Quinones of Youngstown said, referring to a drum she displayed that bears a red-tail hawk and sat next to a variety of items her brother, David Jorge, designed.

Quinones, a part-time professor in YSU’s social-work and psychology departments, also is associated with the United Confederation of Taino People. The UCTP offers a forum for the indigenous people of the Caribbean and the Diaspora to have a unified voice to address many of their issues and concerns, according to the organization’s website.

Saturday evening’s entertainment was from Inovacion Latina, a Youngstown-based salsa and merengue band. Mambo Caliente of Cleveland is scheduled to perform similar music from 5 to 8 p.m. today at the festival, which also includes a silent auction.

For information about the festival and scholarships, email Carlos Rivera, treasurer, at rivera1082@gmail.com.