DeBartolo Performing Arts Center to host Juneteenth Celebration and Resource Fair Friday at Notre Dame
The DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC), in partnership with the Center for Social Concerns, will host a Juneteenth Celebration and Resource Fair from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday (June 14) on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
The event, featuring locally owned businesses and nonprofit organizations, free food from local food trucks, music from Gino J of Mix 102.3 and giveaways, will take place outside the north entrance of DPAC, facing the DeBartolo Quad.
It is free and open to the public.
Now in its second year, the family-friendly event is designed to promote and support local businesses — including and especially Black-owned businesses — in conjunction with the federal Juneteenth holiday, which marks the end of slavery in the U.S. and falls on June 19 each year.
The event also offers members of the community the opportunity to explore campus via the newly established Arts Gateway — a collection of public-facing buildings, classrooms and outdoor spaces devoted to the visual and performing arts and architecture at Notre Dame.
And it marks the start of summer programming at DPAC, with a diverse lineup of performances and events including UZIMA! Drum and Dance Co.’s “Boundless: A Juneteenth Celebration” at 7 p.m. June 22.
According to Leigh Hayden, director of marketing and communications for DPAC, the event is part of DPAC’s mission to be “very visibly inclusive” with respect to both its programming and its approach to community engagement.
“With our location in the Notre Dame Arts Gateway and as part of an effort to bridge the gap between campus and community, the Juneteenth Celebration and Resource Fair is a way for us to bring additional visibility to Freedom Day and what it means to the African American community while adding to community celebrations,” said Hayden, who serves on DPAC’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Committee.
Regina Williams-Preston, community justice program director with the Center for Social Concerns, said, “The relationship building, collaboration and celebration that happens at events like this is important for the community justice work we do at the Center for Social Concerns.”
Jamie Mckinstry, owner of Jetta’s Sweet and Salty Kettle Corn in South Bend, is among the returning vendors.
“I have done several vending events with Notre Dame and all have been successful,” Mckinstry said.
She thanked Notre Dame for including the community in its Juneteenth celebrations, noting of the holiday itself, “Juneteenth has been so important to me because it has given me the right to be free and equal to every human being. We are free to learn and grow and become who we are meant to be.”
Also on Friday, University Enterprises and Events will host a Juneteenth Celebration Through Food from 2 to 3 p.m. at Legends of Notre Dame, featuring barbecue and guest speakers.
The DeBartolo Performing Arts Center is the University’s leading presenter of world-class artistic programming. It is also an academic space devoted to enhancing the scholarship, teaching and practice of the performing arts. And it is a community space that welcomes more than 100,000 patrons annually, including hundreds of K-12 students in education and related artistic programs.
For more information, visit performingarts.nd.edu.
Latest ND NewsWire
- Alumni Association awards 2024 Lennon Life PrizesThe Notre Dame Alumni Association recognized nine alumni clubs as recipients of the Lennon Life Prize — part of the Chuck and Joan Lennon Gospel of Life Initiative, a set of programs focused on encouraging the University’s dedicated network of clubs to uphold the value of life at all stages.
- 'Hybrid’ disaster response shows how localization saves livesThe earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August 2021 killed thousands of people and left more than half a million seeking help. New research by a University of Notre Dame expert finds that the assessment of this disaster can serve as a model for evaluating future disasters and making life-saving improvements.
- Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary CommitteeO. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (June 12) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
- Into high waves and turbulence: Engineers deploy smart devices to improve hurricane forecastsForecasters’ ability to predict a hurricane’s intensity has lagged behind tracking its path because the forces driving the storm have been difficult and dangerous to measure — until now. “When we’re talking 150, 200-mph winds, with 30-foot waves, you don’t send a boat and crew out there to collect data,” said David Richter, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences. Richter is the lead investigator on an Office of Naval Research grant to send drones and other “smart” instruments into hurricanes to collect needed data.
- In memoriam: Winfried ‘Fred’ Dallmayr, professor emeritus of political scienceWinfried “Fred” Dallmayr, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame, died June 5. He was 95.
- President Emeritus Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., honored with Sorin AwardIn recognition of a lifetime of service to the University of Notre Dame, culminating in his 19-year tenure as University President, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., was presented with the 2024 Rev. Edward Frederick Sorin, C.S.C., Award on June 1 during the …