a brass section to play period music, including a rendition of the Grand March of the Ninth Regiment dedicated to Miss M
Greetings from Freeholder John C. Bartlett, Jr.
On behalf of the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders, I welcome you to the Fall 2014 issue of Out & About Ocean County, A Free News Guide to Arts & Heritage Events. Fall is a special time of year in Ocean County. Our ocean, bay and inland waters glisten in the crisp air and attract outdoor enthusiasts from all over the world.
The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders will host the 32nd annual Ocean County Decoy and Gunning Show at Tip Seaman Park in Tuckerton on September 27 and 28. Wells Mills County Park in Waretown will celebrate the 15th annual Pinelands Jamboree on October 11. The Friends of Island Beach State Park will host their annual Beach Plum Festival on September 7. Seaside Heights will host the annual Columbus Day Parade on October 12 and the Italian Street Festival from October 10 to 12. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Ocean County Cultural and Heritage Commission will provide a free music program: Mexico Beyond Mariachi (funded in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts) for individuals, school and community groups on October 10 at 12:00 Noon at the Arts and Community Center at Ocean County College. The newly formed, Ocean County based National Association for the Advancement of Latino People will host the inaugural Garden State Latino Cultural Festival on September 20 at the Lake Terrace Facility at 1690 Oak Street in Lakewood.
The Cultural and Heritage Commission is requesting nominations for the 2014 Ocean County Preservation Awards. Applications are due on October 21. The Awards will be presented at Ocean County College on March 26, 2015 at the Ocean County Celebration of the Arts and Heritage Festival.
Finally, I invite you to join me on Thursday, October 23, on the steps of the historic Ocean County Courthouse to commemorate the fourth annual “Look Back at the American Civil War 1864.” This year, the Garden State Philharmonic will provide a brass section to play period music, including a rendition of the Grand March of the Ninth Regiment dedicated to Miss Mary A. Perrine. Known as the “muskrats,” Company D of the Ninth Regiment was made up of Ocean County sharp shooters.
Please enjoy the arts and history offerings for the fall of 2014. Sincerely,
pwards of 2,000 members of the Hispanic community are anticipated to attend the inaugural Garden State Latino Cultural Festival at Lake Terrace in Lakewood on Saturday, Sept. 20, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. With its 1,600-person capacity, the facility (located at 1690 Oak St.) has plenty of indoor and outdoor space for vendors and guests of what promises to be the definitive celebration of Latino culture and heritage in New Jersey.
By: Victoria Ford
The free, family-friendly event is the official launch party for the newly created National Association for the Advancement of Latino People, co-founded by Jorge and Betty Rod. Jorge Rod is the publisher of the area’s first and only Spanish language newspaper, Latinos Unidos de Nueva Jersey, with a monthly circulation of 40,000 throughout Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex and Mercer counties.
Rod has long felt the Central Jersey region, and Southern Ocean County especially, lacks a strong Latino organization. So in January this year he and his wife Betty formed the NAALP to better equip, assist and educate members of the growing Hispanic population in realizing their full potential. The organization’s goals are to promote learning, language and job skills, in order to broaden Hispanics’ awareness of opportunities on local, state and national levels. Rod felt a large-scale festival would be the ideal way to introduce the new organization, by bringing together a cross-section of the Hispanic community with a common goal and shared values.
In addition to mingling, celebrating, savoring Latin cuisine and browsing other vendors’ treasures, providing the cultural, folkloric soundtrack will be Cimarrones, the state’s premier Afro-Puerto Rican vocal and dance ensemble. Cimarrones performs authentic percussion-driven bomba, a traditional Puerto Rican dance of slaves, and plena, a.k.a. “periódico cantado” (“sung newspaper”) representing the idea of neighborly gossip. But the performance will invoke many countries and islands of Central, South and Latin America, to educate the public about Hispanic heritage. Described as enchanting, “Cimarrones was formed to preserve and promote Puerto Rico’s oldest musical tradition and to spread it to areas where it is underrepresented,” according to the band. Formed in 2009 by director Nelson
Freeholder John C. Bartlett, Jr.
1
Inaugural Garden State Latino Cultural Festival U
Continued on page 35
Fall 2014
34
