~ The Advocate Asks ~

Saugus Cultural Council Co-Chair Tori Darnell talks about the upcoming First Annual Saugus Cultural Festival

  Editor’s Note: For this week’s column, we sat down with Tori Darnell and talked to her about the first-ever Saugus Cultural Festival, which is set for Sunday, Feb. 23, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Saugus Middle High School. Darnell was born in Boston and grew up between Revere and Medford. She bought a home in Saugus in 2021. She graduated from Winthrop Senior High School in 2008 and went to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to study Fine Arts. She graduated in 2012. She currently works at Scalora Consulting Group, an owner’s representative firm in the design and construction industry. Darnell is married to Edgar Mazariegos Medina and shares one child, Xavier Mazariegos Darnell, 8, who attends a Somerville charter school and participates in the Saugus Cross Country and Track team. Darnell joined the Cultural Council in December 2021 and renewed her term in December 2024 for another three years. She started out as Treasurer and is currently Co-Chair of the council. She has been accepted in the Essex County Community Foundation’s Creative County Initiative’s 2025 Changemakers Cohort, which begins in March 2025. She was nominated for Rising Star for the 2024 Professional Women in Construction. Highlights of this week’s interview follow.

Q: How did the idea for the Saugus Cultural Festival evolve? When? Whose idea? Who were the people involved?

A: The Council issued a community engagement survey in 2023 to see the program and events residents want to experience in Saugus. We saw an overwhelming interest for more free, community events in Saugus that bring residents together. We take the community’s feedback seriously and have been using it as the foundation on how we serve Saugus. In one of his first meetings on the Council, Dennis Gould asked if we could hold our own festival and events. That got the discussion going. In spring 2024, the Council approved to organize our first event – that would be free, inclusive and family-friendly – that celebrates the cultural fabric of Saugus. The festival is primarily organized by the Cultural Council members with some support from Stephanie M. Shalkoski, Carol Wallace and Alan Thibeault [the Saugus Public Library Director].

Q: What was the original concept? And the venue? What was the ultimate dream of this event?

A: The vision for the Cultural Festival is to inspire others in town to create more thoughtful, engaging and educational programs in Saugus. We wanted to organize an event that brought neighbors together to celebrate each other. Our focus was to represent the community and showcase local artists and vendors and other community groups. This is why the Cultural Council selected the Saugus Middle High School for the venue. It is already a well-known community gathering place that is also an ADA-compliant building. And we didn’t have to pay for the venue. It’s a public building that hosts a lot of community activities.

Q: Who are the people on the Saugus Cultural Festival event committee? Who are the chairs? All Cultural Council members or Saugus residents from outside the council?

A: Victoria “Tori” Darnell, Co-Chair; Joseph “Dennis” Gould, Co-Chair; Niveditha Amarnath, Treasurer; Vanessa LeFevre, Secretary; Mary Kinsell, Voting Member; Vanessa Dellheim, Voting Member; Kayla Villefranche, Youth Member; Yoela Similien, Youth Member. Stephanie M. Shalkoski, Carol Wallace and Alan Thibeault provided advice throughout the planning and executing phases.

Q: How many hours have you invested in planning the Cultural Festival?

A: Oh, I have no idea but we met together monthly to plan the Festival since April 2024.

Q: Let’s talk about the logistics. How much does an event like this cost? Do you have some benevolent sponsors to help put it together?

A: We started with a $2,500 festival grant award from the Mass Cultural Council. Our major sponsor is WIN Waste Innovations, who donated $5,000. Tax of Life is our corporate sponsor. They gave us $500. We have received multicultural flag donations from New Hope Assembly of God in Saugus and General Electric in Lynn to help with festival decorations. There are about 30 flags that will be loaned to us.

Q: What were the biggest challenges in putting this event together?

A: Town logistics! This is most of the Cultural Council’s first time organizing a large event. We are an entity of the Town so we worked with [Finance Director and Treasurer/Collector] Wendy Hatch and [Town Accountant] Donna Matarazzo to know what we needed to do this right.

Q: Why in the wintertime and not in the summer or spring or fall?

A: The Cultural Council did not want to compete with already Town-established events so we are trying out the winter season. We will see how it goes! We chose Feb. 23, because it’s the last day before kids go back to school from their February vacation. We felt this was a good day to do something nice for them as they ended their vacation. Sunday seemed like a good fit.

Q: How many people do you hope to attract?

A: We have the occupancy space to have more than 1,000 attendees so we hope residents and neighbors are able to come out in the winter for some fun.

Q: Right now, the event is planned for Feb. 23 at Saugus Middle High School from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Is there a snow date in case the weather doesn’t cooperate?

A: There is no snow date because activities are all indoors. I think it would take a real blizzard to cancel this event.

Q: How many food vendors or other vendors will be set up in the Middle High School that day selling food? How many performers or activities will you have? How many countries will be represented? Are all of these people from Saugus?

A: Food Vendors: Black & White Food Service, Mona Curryations, TJ’s Taste Truck & Catering, Athidi Foods, Istanbul Diner and Saugus House of Pizza’s Salvadorian menu. Entertainment: Saugus Schools Acapella Group, Iskwelahang Pilipino Dance Group, Mayur Indian Cultural Academy (MICA), Lucia Ingemi, Keane O’Brien Academy, Theatre Company of Saugus and Veronica Robles Mariachi Group. We also have the Boys & Girls Club who will have a gaming, music and art activities and Circus Up! who will do a small performance and have their set up for all ages to tumble. MGH Care Van will also be there to provide flu shots, diabetes tests, etc.

Q: Everybody who is a vendor or who performs or organizes an activity brings something to the table that will attract visitors. But of all the people who will be displaying their talents and performing, who and what are the highlights? Accomplished artisans or musicians or singers or performers? Who are the Saugus people who will be stars in this event?

A: We are very excited to have all our food vendors based in Saugus to highlight local business. Lucia Ingemi is 15 from Saugus and has trained extensively in ballet and jazz. Veronica Robles is also from Saugus and a cultural icon for Latinos in New England. https://veronicarobles.com/

Q: Any special guests or visitors that you expect?

A: We have invited the Select Board, Town Members and Donald Wong, state representative, to attend.

Q: What is the goal of this Festival? What do you hope to accomplish and build on, I assume for what you hope will be an annual event?

A: We hope that this event becomes one of many new annual events that bring this Town together. We want to inspire other organizations and individuals to take on a dream that serves the community.

  Q: Do you feel that the lineup of participants reflects the best cultural aspects of the town?

A: Saugus is a growing community with many different cultural backgrounds. We know that every group is not represented but hope that in future years we can expand on that and work with more in the community to improve on representation.

Q: How do you think this event will benefit the town?

A: This event is a first for us and we hope people have fun, reconnect with a neighbor and leave making a new friend and learn something new about our community.

Q: Do you have a logo?

A: It’s a quilt of flags put together, connected to each other from the same cloth.

Q: What’s the main thing you want to get across to the community about this upcoming festival?

A: Our vision here is to spark or ignite inspiration for other people in the community to organize their own community-type events because we’d love for there to be more educational and engaging type programs happening in Saugus – that brings family, friends and residents together. Our goal is also to try to do this annually, and we hope this is something that will bring people of diversity in the community together.

Q: What are your plans for future festivals? What will you do differently next year in the planning? What would be the ultimate cultural festival for Saugus?

A: Next year I would like to host early community workshops to hear from residents their ideas for activities, performers and food vendors. I also want to work with more local businesses to have more diverse sponsors for the festival.

Q: Anything else that you would like to share?

A: The Boys & Girls Club of Saugus is going to have a room at the High School for special activities. They’re going to provide art-take-away projects for people. There’s going to be a gaming tournament set up as well. This room is going to be set up for people of all ages, not just kids. One of the activities they will be doing is stamps and button-making. We [the Cultural Council] did button-making at Founders Day. It’s a very open-to-all-ages activity. There will also be a music mixing station, with sound equipment and instruments available.

Q: This is a totally free event?

A: Yes. Coming in is free. Watching the performances is free. The only thing that has a charge is the food vendors, but we’re trying to make it as low cost as possible, so all the food menu options will be under $15. We’ve also requested that the vendors provide a sample of things for people to try.

Q: What are you most excited about, as you look at the festival?

A: I’m excited to see the conclusion of all of the Cultural Council’s members’ efforts and everything that we’ve been working on. None of us have a background in organizing community events, so we’ve taken a lot of time planning and considering things that we thought would be meaningful for the festival for this first year. And we’re excited that we’ll get to do it again the following year with different perspectives.

One of the goals for our next round is to try to get more community involvement from the start.