50 years of celebrating Niagara’s diversity
It all started with a party.
In May 1968 a celebration was organized to showcase the heritage, traditions and culture of various cultural groups that called St. Catharines home.
Although it was only meant to be an annual celebration, it soon evolved into a new organization formed to meet the common needs of new Canadians.
“It started with positive energy,” said Pam Seabrook, Niagara Folk Arts Multicultural Centre fundraising and events manager.
“I know that probably wasn’t the thought back in 1968, but I’m very happy that we get to do both sides — the new Canadian side, and the celebration thereof,” she said.
Meanwhile, the celebration of the city’s cultural mosaic continued each year until it became the longest continually running heritage festival in the country.
After decades of running the Niagara Folk Arts Festival, organizers of the 50th anniversary event hope their efforts renew interest in the festival when it begins on Thursday with the Ambassador Ball.
“This is going to rejuvenate the festival, I think,” said the multicultural centre’s volunteer coordinator Rhiannon Barry.
Plans for the anniversary festival began to take shape last summer when staff and volunteers began sifting through five decades of history, reading through yellowed newspaper clippings, fading black and white photographs and event posters.
The multicultural centre’s youth services co-ordinator, Melenie Neamtz, has been reviewing minutes of board meetings that took place decades ago,
learning the history of the organization where she has worked for 10 years.
Although reading the documents “sounds mundane and horrible,” Neamtz said the experience made her feel like she was sitting in the room with the board members long ago.
“It was so neat because you feel like you’re right there.”
By reading those old documents, she said, it became clear that “the festival grew out of a passion.”
As a result, she said “the accomplishments and things that have happened over the last 50 years are phenomenal.”
But despite those accomplishments, Seabrook said many of the city’s ethnic groups have folded in the many years since that first celebration took place in 1968.
“We have had some closures, just because of the volunteer groups aging out,” she said. “If we can’t get the younger generation interested, then there is going to be a time when grandma and papa can’t do it anymore.”
Nevertheless, the multicultural centre continues to grow as new ethnic groups find their way into Niagara.
And members of the city’s newest cultural groups are passionate about keeping their communities “alive and vibrant,” Seabrook said — just like representatives of other long-established cultural groups did when they arrived 50 years ago.
“That’s what we’re hoping the whole year celebration will be — not just for the month of May, but throughout 2018,” she said.
An exhibit of artifacts from past festivals is being unveiled Friday in Robertson Hall, during a new event added this year called Stone Soup-Stock. The exhibit will remain on display throughout the festival weekend.
Neamtz hopes people attending the festival can provide more information about those artifacts, helping create a polished version of the exhibit to be displayed at a black-tie gala planned for late November.