What makes this town tick?

Residents – from school-age children to senior citizens – can find out March 21 at the Saugus Community Festival

By Mark E. Vogler

If you are a newcomer to Saugus and want to know about the town’s attractions and basic information to make your family’s life easier, help is on the way. If you want to know more about the cultural aspects and the diversity of people that make Saugus the community it is, you will be able to experience it firsthand in a special six-hour event being hosted next month at the Saugus Middle-High School complex.

The organizers of what will be the first annual Saugus Community Festival have been working hard since last summer to make it the town’s biggest indoor event of the year. The Saugus Cultural Council and the Saugus 411 Committee have been collaborating on the festival, which will be hosted in the Saugus Middle-High School Complex at One Pearce Memorial Drive on Saturday, March 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s a free, inclusive and family-friendly celebration of Saugus’ vibrant diversity and will feature food, performances, arts, wellness activities – all intended to highlight the people and cultures that make Saugus special.

“I’m very excited that this is our fourth year holding an event I felt strongly about, inviting new residents to find out what our town is all about,” former Selectman Corinne Riley said of the upcoming event, which is expected to take up two floors in the school complex, with the hope of drawing 500 visitors.

“Having the Board of Selectmen, the Town Manager, the school district and all the participants who still want to be involved in supporting this even bigger and better event, definitely makes Saugus a welcoming and caring community. The ‘Saugus Someplace Special’ catchphrase has at times been used as a negative spin, but we are truly Someplace Special,” she said.

Riley was the driving force behind the nifty program, which had three previous well-attended Saturdays at the Saugus Middle-High School in recent years (2022 and 2023 and 2025), offering Saugus newcomers and a comprehensive introduction to the town and a “refresher course” on what’s available and where to go for longtime town residents.

The Saugus 411 Committee decided to partner with the Saugus Cultural Council, which organized the Saugus Cultural Festival last year. “The spirit of the first festival was about bringing the entire community together,” Saugus Cultural Council Co-Chair Victoria “Tori” Darnell said in an interview this week.

“Partnering with the 411 Committee allows us to amplify this. This event will be a nice blend to celebrate the community,” she said.

It was School Committee member Joseph “Dennis” Gould, a co-chair of the Cultural Council, who first suggested the idea of a Saugus Cultural Festival two years ago. “I have been impressed with the diversity of Saugus residents being able to speak 25 different languages and have been a strong supporter of the arts in Saugus in general, but more specifically Saugus Middle and High School students,” Gould told The Saugus Advocate last year. “I mentioned in one of my first Saugus Cultural Council meetings how I would love to organize a Cultural Festival to showcase Saugus’s diversity and arts, and the members of the council immediately supported this idea and the entire council embraced the idea of planning a festival.”

Last year’s Cultural Festival featured about 30 different flags representing the native countries of the town’s immigrant residents, according to Darnell. Some of the sights, sounds and tastes of those nations will again be on display this year, as the event will feature ethnic food and entertainment.

Three food vendors have already confirmed and will be serving up Haitian Creole food, American Soul-Southwestern food and Indian food. There are two more slots open for food vendors, Darnell said.

Meanwhile, local businesses, nonprofit agencies and town representatives will have community/information tables set up for festival visitors to better orient them to what Saugus has to offer its residents. People at those tables will be available to answer questions.

There will also be tables set up for health testing. At one table, physical therapists will test residents for balance. There will also be vision testing and residents will be able to get their blood pressure checked.

“Between the performers, food vendors and wellness groups, there will be 15 groups involved with the festival,” Darnell said.

During a planning meeting held at the library this week to put the finishing touches on the event, several members of the Saugus 411 Committee and the Saugus Cultural Council shared their optimism about the festival. “We felt joining the Cultural Council would bring a lot more people into the school to see what the town has to offer,” said Jean Swanson, a member of the 411 Committee.

Nive Amarnath called the event “a great way to do something special for the people of Saugus, especially to showcase what we have.”

“To me, I think it’s especially-needed for the children,” said Amarnath, a member of the Cultural Council since 2023 and a town resident since 2010.

Vanessa Dellheim, a Saugus native who has been on the Saugus Cultural Council for two years, called the festival a worthwhile event for people of all ages. “As a person and a mom, I want my children to have a sense of community,” Dellheim said.

“There’s so much going on. But a lot of people don’t know what’s going on. So, this would be a good time for people to attend an event like this,” she said.

Paul Mooney, a new volunteer working on the festival, noted that Saugus “is a world of diversity.” “An event like this lets kids know that everybody has a place at the table,” he said.

Two local students who live in town – Juliana Arevalo, a senior at Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School in Wakefield, and Yunaris Tobis, a student at Pioneer Charter School of Science 2 in Saugus – designed a special logo for the festival.

“As a student, it’s important for youth to be exposed to the diversity of this town,” Arevalo said.

The Saugus Cultural Council is inviting members of the public to drop by the Community Room at the Saugus Public Library at 6 p.m. next Thursday (Feb. 26) to make their own square on a six by six inch sheet of multipurpose art paper. The purpose is for individuals to express themselves through any art medium they desire on what their identity of Saugus is through an individual perspective. This project, which has been labeled “The Bridge,” will weave together the diverse cultural identities and multigenerational stories of the Saugus Community. This community art project will consist of 250 squares to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday. The removable art mural will be unveiled on March 21 at the Saugus Community Festival.

“I’m looking for them to express their personal identity and how to make Saugus a better place,” Darnell said.