New Chairperson And Committee Appointed For Spirit Of Beacon Day's 45th Year
When Gwenno James put the plea out for people to serve on the volunteer-based Spirit of Beacon Day Committee, the community rallied. Gwenno had accepted a job that required her to travel, and the rest of the committee was not ready to fill her shoes.
She emailed a press release to the media seeking help, and then made a presentation at City Council echoing her call. Katie Hellmuth Martin of the local media source A Little Beacon Blog saw the press release and presentation, and emailed Gwenno right away, to the effect of: “I am interested - but this is a huge time commitment and I need to think about it, but I’m very interested.”
Later, after A Little Beacon Blog published the article amplifying Gwenno’s search for a replacement, Katie emailed Gwenno with certainty that she wanted to fill the role, and asked for Gwenno’s consideration. Katie wasn’t alone in her desire to see the Spirit of Beacon Day through. Junior (Zayed) Dabashi of Key Food and Ali T. Muhammad, Community Organizer also wrote in, as did various members of the public for volunteer roles.
Gwenno accepted Katie’s offer, and Katie reached out to Junior and Ali to join the Committee as Board members, as well as to Nickeya Allen Smith formerly of Beacon and now in Poughkeepsie. Their work as a new Committee began with a presentation to City Council to announce the Committee and theme. Katie’s speech is below:
Gwenno, thank YOU so much for stepping up years ago when the former committed group stepped aside after years of service. They passed down a smooth process for you to follow, and you have give us that, with enhancements you made to it.
Thanks to your leadership, the Spirit of Beacon Day has a website, online registration, an Instagram and Facebook account, and spirit. During the height of the pandemic, you and your committee produced alternative versions of the day to keep the spirit alive, with the video and car parade, and honestly, that sounded like the hardest job.
During that time, when the pandemic blossomed into the racial reawakening across the United States and even in Beacon, NY, I started covering the protests down Main Street that marched to Memorial Park and Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park to listen to people's stories during the open mike sessions.
As a reporter, I got out of my comfort zone and spoke with neighbors I had never spoken to before, heard their stories about their lives in Beacon, and reflected.
In 2020, when September rolled around, I thought the Spirit of Beacon Day was the perfect time to kaleidoscope this. To shine the light on the origins of why the Spirit of Beacon Day was created in 1977.
According to the Beacon Centennial - which by the way was published by a committee of which Gwenno was the Chair and several Spirit of Beacon Day Committee Members also served on that publishing Committee -
the Spirit of Beacon Day started due to "racial overtones." I'll read from a Beacon Evening News article from 1986: "Nan Whittingham, the backbone of the Spirit of Beacon Day for a good part of its history, recalled how and why the event was initiated and how many community organizations worked together in an attempt to end racial problems in the city."
She said that "for a number of years, students from Beacon High School and the community were having some problems with racial overtones. It was during the winter and early spring of 1977 that for several days and nights racial problems became more severe."
As a response, several groups met to discuss the cause of the problem, and ways to prevent them. It was decided that having everyone get together to get to know each other was the best way to understand these tensions.
That is exactly what Beacon has been doing ever since, now more than ever. For September's 2020, I thought it a perfect opportunity to dive deeply into the origin story of the Spirit of Beacon Day, but we were mandated to not have parades. So the live parade took a 2 year hiatus.
But now that we're back, after initial talks with this new Committee, we bring to you the theme for this year - the 45th year:
Spirit of Beacon Day:
The Origin Story
Inspired by super hero movies and fairy tale shows that the kids have been watching, we thought this workable inspiration for the schools to design their floats or marches around, and for other groups to work this into their offerings as well.
When I volunteered to Chair the Spirit of Beacon Day, it was important to me to keep these roots alive and nourished. Part of doing that is bringing new people into new opportunities.
I am so humbled and excited to introduce to you the committee members:
Nickeya Allen Smith is our Treasurer. Doing business as Millennial Matriarch, she provides services to businesses and nonprofits in setting up their entities and maintaining requirements. She is a homeschooler, and now part of Little Water Prep, the first Charter School in Dutchess County. She is tapped into Black communities here in Beacon as well as Poughkeepsie. She's a member of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Wappingers Falls.
Junior Dabashi is our Board Member. He is the co-owner of the family-owned business Key Food and produces numerous business events for the communities he is in. He is tapped into Muslim communities in Beacon and Wappingers Falls.
Ali T. Muhammad is our Board Member. He is an organizer, advocate, and former City Council Member for Beacon. He will doing outreach and coordination for parade and vendor registrations, serving as a liaison with the Beacon Police as we maintain coordination, and will be helping to curate the musical lineup for the day. He is tapped into Black and Muslim communities in Beacon and Newburgh.
Rueben Simmons is not on the Board, but is serving an important role of helping us an advisor to the parade coordinator. Reuben works for the Highway Department of the City of Beacon, and was formerly its Highway Superintendent.
As for myself, I have been reporting on the Spirit of Beacon Day Parade for years, and as a Beacon resident of 12 years, I have been attending the parade. For the last few parades, I volunteered to lead the production of South Avenue Elementary's float when it was live, and the car version last year.
This gave me empathy for the parents who produce these floats. My job involved organizing little kids, an art teacher, and parents. Everyone had a great time. I also organized South Avenue's Trunk or Treat last year with 25 decorated cars for a very fun Halloween night.
At the school level, we appreciated the stipend Gwenno's Spirit of Beacon Day Committee afforded us for the first time to contribute to the float and person decorations, since the PTA and school budgets are limited, buying things for floats is necessary.
Here tonight in the audience is Brandon Lillard, serving as a documentarian of this year's production of the Spirit of Beacon Day. He is also a podcaster for I Am Beacon's "This Is Beacon," as well as A Little Beacon Blog's podcast "What What Is That?" Both podcasts are looking to interview people for their histories and stories of the Spirit of Beacon Day and this community, so please, those who are listening out there, reach out to us with yours.
Moraya Seeger DeGeare is here tonight in the audience. She will be one of hopefully many speakers who will open our memories up to life in Beacon throughout the past generations, as known to her through her life, as her grandparents are Pete and Toshi Seeger, and her father worked for the City of Beacon. She just produced a July 4th chalk-in protest event yesterday which also celebrated the upcoming Pete Seeger United States Stamp that she has been working to release.
One of the different things we are doing this year is to continue the lead from the last Committee to incorporate the Businesses more. When I had a storefront office on Main Street, and when I speak to fellow business owners, I see first hand that the businesses are on the front lines of dealing with kids of all ages. All of our kids. Helping in these relationships as their employers or if kids are buying from them, or just hanging out.
Our intention is not to commercialize the day, but to go out to speak to the business owners to get their feels on how to be better incorporated.
Important to us as a Committee is also helping the attendees experience the full Mile of Main Street. We hope to do this by having destinations open that aren't normally open, like the Beacon Farmers Market. I believe that in years past, contractually, the Beacon Farmers Market has had to be closed. I speak for Junior and the rest of the Committee to say that we very much would love to have the Famers Market open, to help the flow of people up that direction of Main Street.
Additionally, perhaps something on the other end of Main Street - the East End - would become available as well to help the flow of people go toward the mountain to experience the cultural there as well through the food, galleries, and boutiques.
We look forward to discussing these ideas with you.
Fundraising is vital for us right now. This day takes at minimum $10,000 to produce, and we have $1,000 in the bank. We are going to open a Go Fund Me, as well as add ways to donate onto the website. We would like to have a cushion, so that we are not at the bottom of the bank account at the end of the parade, and so that we can provide stipends to those in need.
Volunteer positions will have a signup on the website as well, and we will start coordination meetings and a newsletter to keep volunteers in the loop.
Everyone can stay in touch with the Spirit of Beacon Day through our website:
www.spiritofbeacon.org
Instagram: @spiritofbeaconday
Thank you so, so much for accepting our Permit Application, and for the City's help in years past with Trash Pickup and Police Presence to help us safely close the streets and keep the people safe.
And finally, thank you, City Council, Mayor, Assistant to the Mayor, and City Administrator, for all of the work, homework, and presenting that you do. I speak as a person who tunes in each Monday via your live YouTube stream. I value the live cast, so thank you for working out how to keep it.
We are taking our crews home after this, but once I get them settled in with snacks, I'll be turning back in to the live stream.
Have great evenings.