Reunion is a community celebration

Written by Alex Davis Thursday, September 06, 2012 01:00 am

WHITESBORO – Pepper M. Bates of GloucesterCounty moved away from Whitesboro in the early 1950s but still calls the small community home.

She has made it a point to attend the Whitesboro Reunion Festival every year since its inception 24 years ago.

"I focus on seeing family," said the Monroe Township resident as she sat at one of the tables Saturday at the reunion.

The event, put on by the Concerned Citizens of Whitesboro, took place Friday through Sunday at the grounds of the Martin Luther King Community Center. The reunion brings together current residents and those who moved away.

Bates, 67, said she looks forward to coming to the reunion each year, to see family and friends. She also said she enjoys the food.

Even though she and her family left Whitesboro more than half a century ago, Bates said she tries to visit the area at least once a year.

Burleigh resident Dawn Robinson sold homemade food at the Whitesboro Reunion Festival. She used family recipes, like her late father's sweet potato pie and late mother's chicken.

She runs Dawn's Delights in Burleigh.

Robinson has been selling food at the festival for seven or eight years, she said. But she has gone to the event as a spectator before that as well, she said.

What's people's favorite food that she sells?

"Everybody has their own thing," she said.

Robinson, 48, expects to earn degrees in culinary arts and food service management from Atlantic Cape Community College's Mays Landing campus in Atlantic County next year.

Her love of cooking prompted her to enroll at Atlantic Cape, she said.

The Concerned Citizens of Whitesboro also awarded her a $1,000 scholarship, and that makes her want to contribute to the reunion event more, she said. She used the money during the 2011-12 school year, she said.

"It was really needed financially," Robinson said.

Many others also set up food booths around the grounds of the MartinLutherKingCommunity Center on Saturday.

One of them was George W. Blackman of Whitesboro. He grilled smoked chicken.

"It's [the reunion] good because it brings the community back together," he said.

Blackman said he returned to the area in 1990 because he had enough of the city.

He lived in Jersey City in Hudson County from the late 1970s to 1990.

"City life was too fast," he said.

Food wasn't the only thing on the festival agenda over the weekend. The reunion included speakers Larry Gibson, law professor at the University of Maryland; Gerald L. Reeves, president and CEO and director of Sturdy Savings Bank; David Wilson, Morgan State University president; and the Rev. Kathleen Smallwood Johnson of the Macedonia Baptist Church in Cape May.

Entertainment was on tap Saturday and Sunday, including Eddie Morgan playing jazz. Parishioners worshiped during a multi-church service Sunday morning.

"It [the reunion] gives us a chance to showcase Whitesboro," Concerned Citizens president Bernie Blanks said.