Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here, we come together and talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Thanks for joining us again this weekend. I'm
Nicole Davis. It's hard to believe sometimes that the worst
of the COVID pandemic was playing out five years ago,
but that is exactly what was happening. It's hard to
(00:29):
remember that we couldn't be together safely for fear of
spreading a virus that honestly, we really didn't know much about.
That summer though, sparked a brand new event on the
sea coast of New Hampshire. It's all about bringing together
black and brown people from all over New England, giving
them a chance to honor and celebrate the cultures and
the histories that brought our communities together. It's called the
(00:49):
New England BIPOC Fest BIPOC which stands for Black, Indigenous
and People of Color. This year's festival is set to
be bigger and better than ever. David Vargas as the
vice chair of the board for the festival. He's a
local restaurant tour as well. Great to have you here.
David and I want to find out more about the
backstory of this festival, how this all came together.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Definitely, So the festival started. This is our fifth year
going now. It started during the pandemic, after the murder
of George Floyd. Myself and a fellow colleague, Evan Mallett
who owns The Black Trumpet, found ourselves at a gathering
one day and said, you know, we really should use
(01:32):
our platform, our chef platform for the better to really
highlight the bipop communities throughout New England. And we brought
on our good friend, our assistant mayor, Joanna Kelly, assistant
mayor here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and together we all
created New England Bipodfast. We also have our good friend
(01:54):
that we added into our group, Mrie Collins. She's a
student graduate at UNH as well, and the four of
us created New England Bipodfast together and really, to tell
you the truth, the first year, we didn't know what
we were doing. We just know we wanted to do something.
(02:16):
We wanted to kind of put our voices and use
our platform for the better of these marginalized communities. And
so we started it at my restaurant Vita Canteena in
Portsmouth and we just called it Bipodfast. Actually the first
year and we had no idea what a hit it
would be. We had about seven hundred and fifty attendees
(02:40):
and so then we decided and as year two came around,
we said, this needs to be bigger than we what
we thought it should be, and we decided to change
the name to New England by Podfast. Over the years,
it's grown and grown so much that we actually outgrew
the parking lot at my restaurant. In year three once
we had tooths over two thousand attendees and last year
(03:05):
for year four, we moved it to Strawberry Bank Museum
in downtown Portsmouth and we had five over five thousand
attendees at our festival. The incredible thing about our festival
it's completely sponsored driven and it's one hundred percent free
to the community. So there are suggested donations if you
(03:26):
felt like it, but we wanted to make it accessible
to all types of income to be able to come
out and enjoy what we feel is the deep rooted
communities of New England, and so if you come out
to the festival, you are able to enjoy all the
entertainment we have music all day long, or entertainment it
(03:46):
should say, from Korean fan dancers, to reggae artists, to
hip hop artists to West African drummers and dancers, so
many different acts throughout the whole day. We have about
thirty five different restaurants that represent the BIPOC community or
our allies of the BIPOC community from all over New
(04:08):
England that come out and they will sample out a
free sample for you to taste their cuisine as well.
And then we have about something like sixty eight different
organizations between nonprofits to different organizations that really represent and
help uplift these BIPOC community.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Says, well, now we have so many different diverse communities
around New England like you talk about, that don't necessarily
get the stage to show off all they have to offer.
Sometimes have you what have you been hearing from representatives
of these communities as this festival continues to grow.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
This is I mean one of the first the first year. Actually,
this gentleman came up to us afterwards at one of
the attendees who said, I had no idea how needed
this was in our community, just to be able to
feel like a sense of secure, like safety in an
event like this, and to be around other BIPOC members
(05:07):
as well of your community just feels so strengthening altogether.
And so that's one of the most beautiful things behind it,
you know. And also, you know, even if you're just
an ally of the BIPOC community, for you to be
able to come and see what true New England looks
like is absolutely incredible as well, because you don't even
(05:28):
know what goes into these organizations or these organizations that
you know, you've probably never even heard of.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's true. And you know, you're holding this at Strawberry Bank,
which I really love for a variety of reasons. It's
a great venue, but also it's steeped in history itself,
so to me, it almost feels like you're pulling the
past and present together in such a poignant way.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Absolutely, I think that was one of the most beautiful
things behind it. You know, we're not hiding the story
behind what Strawberry Bank is, the colonial colonial is that
happened throughout that museum itself, and so we want to
be able to come into something like that and be
able to spread the love, the joy and represent that
through culture, through music, through dance. You know, so many
(06:13):
different varieties all in one day.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So you mentioned that you've got vendors, and you've got
obviously the food, which I feel is the most important
part of any event. You got to have the food
and you've got.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
That on lock.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So you're good. But what about you mentioned music entertainment?
If people come, who's going to be performing?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So we have the Sea Coast West African drummers and dancers.
They'll be performing. Be Positive, which is a reggae artists
out of Northern Maine. He'll be performing as well. We
have Adriaan mac davis who's a hip hop artist, a
woman hip hop artist that's just absolutely mind blowing. And
so there's just so many different acts. We have the Korean,
(06:54):
the New England Korean Foundation will be doing their traditional
Korean fan dancers as well. There's just so many different
varieties of acts that are happy. It's absolutely so beautiful
and so amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Are you finding people coming in, you know, from Vermont,
from Connecticut, from Rhode Island, all making their way up
to New Hampshire or is this more of like a
Greater Boston thing.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
No, all over New England you know, I feel like
the stretch is starting to become more and more and
that's what we want to see happen, you know, that's
why we realize you're one. Like we want to make
a bigger Outher wave throughout New England. Our hope is
to be able to create this joyous festival, that we
could spread this throughout the whole country, because right now,
(07:37):
that's what we need more and more in this world
right now. We need so much joy because there's such
a divide, there's such a worry throughout our country right now,
and we're the state of the where we are right
now that we want to be able to spread this
throughout our whole country. So we're hoping more and more so.
But we are seeing people drive in from all throughout
(07:59):
all New England and to be able to enjoy this festival.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I'm sure a lot of the local Portsmouth area
city and town officials are helping out with this as well.
Are you seeing a lot of support from them?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Absolutely? They you know, we hear it all the time.
This is the festival that they look forward to all
year long, you know. And I think the biggest thing
for everybody is that they're so surprised that it's one
hundred percent free to the whole community. You know.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, And speaking of that, it takes money to put
on a festival, and I appreciate that it's free and
that it's accessible for everybody, but you do need to
pay people because that's just how the world works. So
do you have sponsorships if people want to pay, Like,
how can they get support?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
We have you know, you can go on to our
website and you can donate through via our website the
day of the festival. There will be donation stanzas throughout
the whole festival as well. We've gotten some great sponsorships from,
you know, Service Credit Union is our huge event sponsor.
They have been for the last this is their fifth
(09:01):
year running. And then we have various other sponsors throughout
our community as well that have added on from like
Ridental to Win Waste Solutions as well. There's just so
many various community organizations that want to support this festival
(09:21):
in so many different ways, and it's incredible. And what's
even better about this is that not only do we
bake this free to the community, we have all this
amazing food that everybody's allowed to sample for free. And
you have all the entertainment that everybody's able to enjoy
for free. But then we pay all our entertainment. We
(09:43):
pay a step to all our restaurants as well as
they participate also, so it's not like, you know, we're
asking these organizations, these restaurants, these different entertainment groups to
come here and just perform for free. No, all this
sponsorship money goes back to them. And then throughout the
year then we create different ways that we can help
(10:05):
fund and or support the different BIPOC community organizations, groups
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That is phenomenal, and I appreciate the fact people's time
is valuable and what they have to create and what
they have to offer is valuable. And I'm sure they
would do it for free if you ask them nicely,
because this is a great event, but you know, you know,
compensation is important, especially these days. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And we started that day from year one and it's
continued on and on, and it's increased more and more
as we see it increase, as we see the festival
increase in participation.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, if somebody wants to volunteer, perhaps, if they want
to help you out, because I'm sure, you need bodies
that data move stuff and help people out and so
on and so forth. Do you need volunteers?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We do for sure. Our volunteer page is on our website,
so you could go on there and there's a Google
form that you can fill out, or you can just
go ahead and find our contact and email us as well,
and then we'd be able to set that up also.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
All right, phenomenal. So looking back over the past five years,
I mean, I feel like, because of COVID and everything,
the past five years are kind of a blur. I
don't really, I don't know. There's so many mixed feelings
about the past five years, but this seems to be
such a bright spot in all of that. Did you
ever imagine it was going to get this big?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I had no idea, you know, we just knew that
we wanted to do something. And what I love about
is year after year, I mean, we didn't have a
five to one C three to begin with. Right out
of this, we've created a five to one C three
and we've been able to help so many different organizations
and create so many different things off of this. Now
(11:40):
kind of like you know, a thought that we had
by just coming together as a group and saying we
need to do something more in our community and so
to be able to see it grow a year after year,
we know that this could become something so much bigger
than we ever thought of.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Okay, so then if again people want to find out
again you don't need tickets to go to this thing,
which is the best show up?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I need to show up the rain or shine event.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, so tell us about the details. Then when, where, how,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So New England by Podcasts. First of all, you can
find us at New England bipodcast dot com on the
web or New England on Instagram as well. It is
on Sunday, August seventeenth at Strawberry Bank Museum in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, from twelve to five.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And again you don't need to pay anything. You just
need to show up and have some fun and if
people want.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
To enjoy, bring your good vibe and enjoy the community.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Good vibes are necessity for any sort of event. So yes,
definitely leave the bad vibes at home. We're not looking
for that this time around. Is exactly you want to
can people sign up to, you know, help you with
later events. You said you kind of spin this off
throughout the year. Do you have anything else coming down
the pike or are you focusing just on this for now?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
No, So we just said we do two events a
year and the other one is called Pharmacue and we
do that one in June and Farmacue kind of helps
support biodiversity seeds throughout New England. And so we have
a one acre farm and a actually I would say
I guess it's two acres almost now, and we grow
(13:21):
indigenous seeds that help subvert support biodiversity throughout New England
as well. And then we support a black farmer. Her
name is Aquila Campbell. She has our farm that is
her farm that is Zeri Wingy and she grows African
Diasporas seeds and so that event really helps support those
projects as well.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
That is incredible. Where can people find out more about
the farm?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
If they email us, we can link them. We are
always looking for volunteers out on the farm as so.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Again New England Bipocfest dot com chef David Vargas. If
you want to plug your restaurant here too, why not?
Where can you come find you?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
They can find us either Vita Cantina. I mean, I'll
plug all our restaurants in our in our five O
one C three, you can find us at Vita Cantina,
Black Trumpet, or or Nell's Barbecue, all.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Right, and those are all in Portsmouth or around.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Portsmouth, Yes, exactly, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Phenomenal. Well, David, it's been great getting to talk to
you about this. Have a wonderful event, and I hope
the weather holds, and I hope there's all the joy
in the world there. Have a safe and healthy weekend.
Please join me again next week for another edition of
the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.