Rain doesn't dampen Sewickley Community Center's Juneteenth festival

The rain did not interrupt the fun at the Sewickley Community Center as it held its Juneteenth festival outside on Saturday.

Starting at noon, several local vendors lined up on Chadwick Street and along the grounds of the community center to promote and sell their products. Over 50 people attended the event, enjoying the music, live performances and food.

Shawnda Davis, a board member for the community center, said the festival was an opportunity to bring everyone together after holding a virtual festival last year.

“We wanted to put together a little festival for everyone to come back out locally,” Davis said.

Patricia Smith of Coraopolis attended the virtual festival and said this year’s was bigger.

“I love it. I am so happy they were able to do this,” she said.

The festival held a greater meaning to attendees this year as Mayor Bill Peduto declared Juneteenth an official holiday last August. President Joe Biden signed a bill June 17 to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Maia Morris, of Bellevue, who attended the festival for the first time, said it felt bittersweet celebrating the new federal holiday, an observance of the end of slavery in Galveston, Texas, by a Union Army order on June 19, 1865.

“The day is important and great, but we also have a lot things we are waiting on getting signed and passed to help the Black community,” she said.

For Chelsea Thomas, owner of Levi’s Kozy Korner, it was an opportunity to promote her business for the first time at an event on a special day.

“It’s nice to be amongst all these other Black businesses. Everyone is nice, and I have received a lot of great feedback,” Thomas said.

Eliza Hailstock, owner of Esther Wear, was able to have a full circle moment being a vendor at the event because her family helped establish the community center. She was happy to celebrate Juneteenth as a federally recognized holiday.

“It feels like an acknowledgement of the beginning of Black history in the United States,” she said, “I am so pleased to see it as a national holiday.”