ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
February is just around the corner, which means Liberal’s Black History Committee is finalizing plans for the annual Black History Month activities.
The 2025 festivities will start with the Taste Festival, which will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16 at the Liberal Senior Center at 701 N. Grant Ave., and then continue with the Black History Scholarship Banquet, which will be at 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22 at Seward County Community College and feature guest speaker William Madden, who currently serves as the director of regulatory affairs at National Beef.
The Black History Month events will conclude with the Gospel Song Festival, which will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23 at the Bibleway Church of God in Christ at 410 E. 8th Street. Coordinator Christine Hammond said there is a lot to be excited about for this year’s activities lineup.
“I'm really excited we're able to get together and plan events out for this year, because some years are harder than others as far as preparing and planning everything out,” Hammond said. “I'm really excited about everything we'll be doing – with the Taste Festival, I say the more the merrier because you can never have too much food, so If you have a favorite dish or a dish your grandparents used to make or something like that, make it and bring it for people to try out, because you never know how popular it will be. Then with the scholarship banquet, that always brings a lot of people out to celebrate, and so does the Gospel Song Festival because everyone likes singing and coming together with God. We're really excited for all these events, and we'd love to see everyone out there for these events.”
Turnout to last year’s events was overall very strong, Hammond said.
“Last year was amazing, and we were really happy overall with the turnout to everything. We didn't see quite as many people at the Taste Festival because I guess the word didn't get spread out enough about it getting moved to the Liberal Senior Center, but we've been talking that up a lot and hope to see more people at that this year,” Hammond said. “We also want to help people in town become aware the Liberal Senior Center is around and offers a lot for the senior population. The banquet saw a really, really big turnout, and Sheyvette Dinkens was wonderful as our guest speaker, so we were really happy to see that go so well. We were also really happy with the turnout to the Gospel Song Festival, the church was packed that afternoon with so many people from the community, everything ultimately ended up going really well. Barring any inclement weather or other catastrophes, I expect to see big crowds again for this year's events and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone enjoy everything that happens.”
Hammond emphasized all of the events are for the entire community.
“We don't put these events on for ourselves, we put them on for the community and everyone in it. It does not matter if you're young or old, if you're new to town or have lived here for multiple decades, all that matters is bringing people together to celebrate the community,” Hammond said. “Everything we do is free to the public, except the scholarship banquet since we have to pay for the meals and some other incidentals that go along with that. We also have t-shirts for sale to help our scholarship fund. The main goal is to get the public out and have the public enjoy what we put on – we've had a lot going on these past couple years, and we need to come together more as a community. It's not for just the members of the committee, it's for the entire Liberal community as a whole. And all of the events are a great time to fellowship with others, so just come on out and enjoy a good time.”
Hammond said she is particularly excited for the scholarship banquet.
“We work really, really hard raising money for our scholarship fund so we can help these young people who are planning to extend their education, and we want to provide as many of those opportunities as possible,” Hammond said. “And we always do our best to promote not just the Black History Committee scholarship, but also other scholarships available for them to apply for, because anyone who wants to should have the chance to extend their education and reach those goals. We always feel good when we're able to award this scholarship money to these young people, and we want to keep doing that as long as possible.”
Overall, Hammond said, she hopes the community will have a great time at the Black History Month activities for this year.
“We will be doing something different for this year I think will be really cool, and there are still some final details being worked out,” Hammond said. “Basically what we'll be doing is, every week, we'll do a drawing and ask a question about a historical figure, and then if someone knows the answer, they have to call a certain number and give us the number. There will be a chance to win tickets to the scholarship banquet and t-shirts, and I'm really excited to see how that turns out. If you're someone who's never been to any of our celebrations, this year would be a great time to come, and you're guaranteed to enjoy it, no matter what you come to. I like to see the expressions on everyone's face as they come in for everything. Everyone greets each other and everyone's happy to see everyone else, and it's great to see everyone come together. I feel like society's become more bitter in the past few years, so anytime you can bring people together, it's absolutely worth it.”
