Well over one hundred individuals experienced soulful foods, dance performances, music and happy chatter at the Juneteenth Celebration hosted by the Southside Community Center. The event included food, live performances, free items and dozens of vendors and community initiatives tents with children, students and adults in attendance.
The festival is held annually to commemorate Juneteenth, which is celebrated nationwide on June 19 and marks the emancipation of slaves in America, was organized by the staff of Southside Community Center, led by executive director Chavon Bunch.
Bunch said that she was “honored” to continue Ithaca’s “amazing 50-year tradition” of holding a community Juneteenth celebration.
“It was exhausting to plan the event, but when the day finally gets here it’s very exciting,” Bunch said. “[Once I got] here at 8 o'clock in the morning and the stage went up and [I heard] the first sound check, then there’s the sense of ‘Oh we did it’ and it's a wonderful feeling.”
Denise Katzman, attended the Juneteenth celebration after the Ithaca No Kings Rally. She said that experiencing the event was “very educational and fun.”
“These types of events are wonderful for the community," Katzman said. "The more education and community that Ithaca has the better off it will be."
Bunch says she hopes attendees and the Ithaca community learned “togetherness, fellowship, food and family” from the event. Bunch was impressed with the turnout, which has increased since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bunch collaborated with vendors and community initiatives that wanted to set up tents at the event and stated that people were calling her up to the day before the event asking to set up booths.
Various community organizations table at a Juneteenth celebration at Ithaca's Southside Community Center on June 14, 2025. (Nathan Ellison / Sun Staff Photographer).
One of those initiatives was run by Darlynne Overbaugh, the director of Children’s and Youth Ministries for First Congregational Church of Ithaca. She was leading the church’s Stuffy Wellness Center Project which collects old children’s stuffed animals and repairs them to give out to individuals for free.
“We just keep them out of the landfill and keep spreading the love one stuffy at a time,” Overbaugh said.
She said she was thrilled to attend the event and run a tent. To her, Juneteenth means learning more about the Ithaca community and enjoying the “energy, education, innovation and support” of the event.
Many attendees of the nearby No Kings Rally also made their way to the Juneteenth celebration, according to Bunch and Biagio Abbatiello, who volunteered at the festival after the rally, which they helped organize.
Abbatiello said he volunteered to set up a tent at the Juneteenth celebration to raise awareness about the No Kings Rally and to inform the general public of the rally’s pro-democracy message.
Lara Parrilla ’99, a visiting lecturer at Cornell and community manager at Cayuga Health, said she enjoyed engaging with the community at the Juneteenth event and has been attending the celebration for the past 18 years. She set up a tent in collaboration with Tompkins County Whole Health to share resources for access to high-quality healthcare and distribute results from a community survey.
“I'm really interested in understanding different community members' experiences with our healthcare system and any barriers they might be experiencing,” Parrilla said.
Zeinab Faraj is a reporter from The Cornell Daily Sun working on The Sun’s summer fellowship at The Ithaca Voice. This article was previously published in The Ithaca Voice.
Zeinab Faraj is a member of the class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the feature editor on the 143rd Editorial Board and was the assistant sports editor of the 143rd Editorial Board. You can reach her at zfaraj@cornellsun.com.
