Cinco de Mayo festival planned for Saturday

Food, music, culture the focus of new celebration on Healdsburg’s plaza
Healdsburg will be hosting its first Cinco de Mayo event in the Plaza, albeit on May 4. The alcohol-free program is sponsored and organized by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and will feature multiple dance troupes.
Linda Maxwell is the senior warden at St. Paul’s and is the primary organizer of the festival as well as Ballet Folklorico Guerneville, one of the troupes scheduled to dance at the Cinco de Mayo festival.
“It’s all about kids,” Maxwell said. “Celebrating all their hard work and celebrating what they’ve learned.”
The multi-ethnic Guerneville dance troupe is made up of about 70 children, Maxwell said.
“About half are Anglo and half are Latino dancers,” she said. “We know the children are the bridge.”
Also on the schedule is the Windsor-based Ballet Folklorico Sarita, bringing 35 more dancers to the event. A Oaxacan group is also planned to perform, bringing the number of Mexican states represented in dance to nine, Maxwell said.
The lack of a Healdsburg Ballet Folklorico group wasn’t lost on Maxwell.
“There could be a movement to have a Ballet Folklorico group in Healdsburg,” she said. “It could be an offshoot and that would be wonderful.”
Sharing the plaza will be several sponsors and vendors. Costeaux French Bakery, the Healdsburg Regional Library and Wells Fargo will be sharing space with Casa del Mole and Agave Mexican Restaurant.
Chef and owner of Agave, Octavio Diaz, will be in attendance for the event. He is eager to leverage the holiday as an educational opportunity, he said.
“Lots of people think this is Mexican Independence Day, but it’s really not,” he said. “So we want to educate the community on what this date means and what happened in Puebla in 1862.”
At the battle of Puebla, an outnumbered and lesser-equipped Mexican army unexpectedly defeated an army of the French Empire.
“A lot of people think it’s a party, but it really means to come together and remember what happened,” Diaz said. “We’ll celebrate it through dancing, food, arts and remembering the people involved in that battle.”
The process of getting permits for the use of the plaza was fairly simple, according to the organizers.
When asked how the city reacted to the plans for the celebration, St. Paul’s Church Maxwell said, “They’re embracing the Cinco de Mayo event.”
At the event, prizes donated by local businesses will be raffled off with the proceeds going to the dance organizations. Tamales will be on sale at the event to raise money for the church youth group’s planned mission to Ecuador.
The Cinco de Mayo event will last from 11:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. although Maxwell said the dancers will assemble at the church at 11:15 and then parade down to the plaza and walk the perimeter of the plaza so that passersby will be able to tell, “something is about to happen.”