By Hannah Werle / The Jambar
The community gathered to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 21 in downtown Youngstown, signaling strong bonds after a demanding year.
Only in its second year, the ¡Hola Fest! is an event celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. According to the ¡Hola Fest! website, the event’s name is an acronym for “Hispanic Or Latin American” and the festival is meant to highlight all of these cultures.
HOLA Fest’s website states, “¡Hola Fest! is Youngstown’s very own Hispanic parade and festival. It is a free, family-friendly event celebrating culture and community. Filled with lots of children’s activities, music, food, fashion, art and dance, all from the heart of Hispanic [and] Latin America.”
Lisette Encarnacion, the lead for Marketing and Branding and the emcee for the parade, said last year’s festival garnered over 3,000 attendees of all cultures and origins.
“HOLA Fest is a Hispanic or Latin American celebration — all walks of life, not just Puerto Rican and Mexican, but we have Panamanian, Peruvian, Honduran, Jamaican, Brazilian — Venezuelan is here too. We have many different walks of life from the Hispanic community,” Encarnacion said.
Encarnacion said the festival takes months of planning, and seeing the end result can be emotional.
“Last year I teared up and this year I teared up,” Encarnacion said. “It’s just beautiful to see us all come together. It’s 10 months of work in the making. Right after last HOLA Fest, we started right away and this is the outcome and right now, it’s looking pretty amazing, so it brings tears to my eyes.”
Held at Wean Park by the Covelli Center, the festival kicked-off with a parade at 12 p.m. and continued until 9 p.m. with a pageant, dancing and live music. Food trucks, bounce houses and vendor booths were set up around the park.
Live music started at 3 p.m. with Conjunto Riquena, followed by Mambo Caliente, The Labra Brothers and headliner Tony Succar.
Caroline Picarro, who is Puerto Rican, attended the event to celebrate her heritage and as a representative of Chase Bank.
Picarro is an employee of the Chase Bank in downtown Youngstown, and was injured in the Realty Tower explosion.
“Recently I was in an accident — the explosion at Chase, so I just want to come see my people, [try] to enjoy after the horrific accident,” Picarro said.
Picarro said going to the HOLA Fest gave her the opportunity to see her culture represented.
“Being in a place where you don’t see your culture everyday, just being here you can see a little bit,” Picarro said. “It’s really nice to see people, faces that you know, things like that.”
Candice Lemley was also at the event promoting Chase Bank, which had a car in the parade.
“It’s really nice for the community, it’s great for the culture and everything, and it just means a lot to see everyone enjoying themselves too,” Lemley said
According to the ¡Hola Fest! Youngstown Facebook account, this year’s event doubled the attendance from last year.