By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Walpole was ready to celebrate Juneteenth on Wednesday, June 19th at the Walpole Commons. The amazing organization, Be Inclusive, held their fifth annual Juneteenth Celebration for everyone to come and enjoy.
This family-friendly event included multiple musical performances, a live DJ, food trucks, an array of local business vendors, and a children’s area for the younger ones. Despite the rather hot heat wave that came through New England during this time, crowds still flooded in to celebrate together.
For the first time, Be Inclusive members began a new tradition they plan on conducting each year at this celebration. They had kiddos gather together to raise a flag that symbolizes the changes that have been made within the community including better embracing all diversity.
Founder of Be Inclusive, Shantae Holmes, addressed the crowd before raising the flag, “We are going to make this a community event. This is really special, raising this flag signifies that we as a community understand and recognize the sacrifices and the changes that we are doing and making here in Walpole. As a community we are striving to embrace all diversity and we are also trying to make sure that everyone understands our differences that make us all unique, important and special. This year we are raising this flag in honor of all of the people who have gotten us to where we are today as well as the youth who are our future of tomorrow to help keep this going. Kristen and I are doing our best but we will not be able to do this forever, so we really need our community to come together every year and support this event. So with that being said, we will raise our flag!”
Co-Founder of Be Inclusive, Kristen Kohlmeyer, was also in attendance and seemed absolutely thrilled with the turnout. “We really just want to thank the community,” Kohlmeyer stated, “for the continued support and for coming out to events like these. It may be hot but we are here to celebrate together and that is so important.”
The Be Inclusive organization’s goal is to support town members by trying to create a more welcoming, safe, and inclusive community. According to their website, they “create inclusive communities by lifting the voices of underrepresented and marginalized communities, recognize diverse cultures and intersectional experiences, and support healthy racial identity development and ongoing anti-racist learning through education, community, events, programming, and resources.”
Overall, this event brought multiple organizations, local businesses, and community members together to celebrate the same thing: Juneteenth. The importance of this holiday will continue to be celebrated all over, but we hope to see its continued support here in Walpole with events like these.
