New England BIPOC Fest in Portsmouth bigger than ever: What to know before you go

PORTSMOUTH — A native chef, a Hawaiian hula performance group and more than 50 vendors will participate in the third annual New England BIPOC Fest, celebrating the region’s Black, Indigenous and all people of color through food and culture.

The third annual event, originally called BIPOC Fest in 2021 before expanding last year, will again be held in the Vida Cantina parking lot at 2456 Lafayette Road in Portsmouth. The festival is Sunday, Sept. 24, from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, and food is free, too, according to Joanna Kelley, a leader of the event. It will feature a Mariachi band, African drummers, a drag queen and representatives from Somersworth’s Indonesian Community Connect Inc.. Donations will be accepted.

Chef David Vargas, owner of Vida Cantina in Portsmouth and Ore Nell’s Barbecue on Badgers Island in Kittery, is a co-founder of the festival, along with Kelley, who is Portsmouth's assistant mayor and owner of Cup of Joe in Portsmouth, and chef Evan Mallett, owner of Black Trumpet in Portsmouth.

Festival is growing

The event has more than doubled the number of vendors from its first year. Organizers expect the 2023 festival to attract between 2,000 and 2,500 guests, about triple the 750 who attended in 2021.

“It’s overwhelming in such a good way to see it happen, and then also to be helping organize it and add something not only to this community, but also to New England,” said Vargas, a James Beard Award-nominated chef. “Hopefully this has a ripple effect across the country. To be a part of it is absolutely amazing.”

Chef Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe known as "Sioux Chef," will be delivering a speech on Indigenous foodways in BIPOC communities at the festival. The Hawaiian Society will lead a hula dance and raise money for aid efforts following the series of Maui wildfires this month that killed 115 people — the nation’s deadliest wildfire in over a century.

Kelley is the president of New England BIPOC Fest, which is now a registered nonprofit. The organization has recruited restaurants, performance acts and, for the first time, retailers from states across New England — except for Connecticut — to set up tents and tables.

With help from The Music Hall of Portsmouth, the festival will feature two stages, where musical acts, spoken word poetry and a speaker series will perform.

Food is free for attendees and vendors are paid

Participating local eateries include the Sassy Biscuit, Mei Wei Dumplings, Shalimar India Restaurant and Raleigh. The list of organizations on hand includes the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, Black Lives Matter Seacoast, the Korean-American Society of New Hampshire, Inc., Occupy Seacoast, Foodies Without Borders and the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People and more. Food is free for people who attend the event.

Each festival food vendor, as they were last year, will be paid for their services with a $500 stipend.

“Part of that is we’re paying people of color for their time and respecting the industry that is always asked to give so much to our communities,” Kelley said.

“This is not a festival for just people of color. This is just a festival putting all those groups in one location,” Kelley said. “But I like to remind people, these are people that are already your neighbors. These are people that are well-established and have lived in New England their entire lives. They’re primarily New Hampshire-based, but we are always trying to reach out and pull in from other communities.”

The festival’s lead sponsor is Service Credit Union, which has given $10,000 to this year’s event.

“Anything we can try to do to create free opportunities for the community, we’re certainly going to get on board with that,” said Jaime Yates, community relations manager with Service Credit Union.

Portsmouth 400th promoting New England BIPOC Fest

The third annual New England BIPOC Fest will take place amid a banner year for celebrations in Portsmouth, a city marking its 400th anniversary of settlement. Neighboring municipalities Dover, New Castle and Rye were also settled in 1623.

The assistant mayor was asked recently about what the festival, which is being promoted by Portsmouth NH 400 Inc., the official anniversary year organization, has to do with the city’s quadricentennial.

“To me, this has everything to do with the 400th (anniversary) because we can’t just celebrate one culture. We can’t just celebrate European settlement here. There’s plenty of cultures. As I always say … communities are made out of communities,” she said. “We know we have a Black and Indigenous population that dates back to our settlement. We know we have an Asian settlement. We have a Hispanic background that is hundreds of years old, too.”

Festival seeking a bigger site for 2024 event

Next year and in years to come, Vargas and Kelley are aiming to relocate the expanding festival from Lafayette Road to a larger site in Portsmouth. Leaders previously toyed with the idea of receiving city approval to hold the festival in the downtown Bridge Street lot, but it never came to fruition.

“I’d love to close off all the streets of downtown (Portsmouth) and really take it over. I think there’s enough BIPOC representation throughout New England where we could do the whole downtown,” Vargas stated. “It’s really just about finding the right fit for us.”

Information: newenglandbipocfest.com

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 2023 New England BIPOC Fest in Portsmouth NH: What you need to know