The Hammonton Gazette 03/11/15 Edition | Page 5

Food truck event coming to downtown on Friday, June 12 Page 4 • Wednesday, March 11, 2015 • The Hammonton Gazette FOOD, from Page 1 cludes herself, has been instrumental in making this food truck festival a reality. The other members are Lauren Crescenzo, Robin Gazzara, Joanna Iacovelli and Jen Enders. “It is a new market of volunteers that I am excited about. One of the major goals of MainStreet [Hammonton] for the next three years has been to embrace diversity. After many conversations with different audiences it was decided that food is the best way to initially create that multicultural diversity experience in a most authentic way. The food truck festival seems to be a fun, and really good way to do that,” Iacovelli said. MainStreet Hammonton is committed to tying in the arts in a creative way and bringing the diverse range of human activities to the forefront, according to Iacovelli. “This conversation of a food truck festival came out of my economic restructuring committee for ways to really celebrate diversity, but it also came up in my arts district committee in a way to mesh arts with food. It is a natural combination. That is what set the pace for us to be doing this,” Iacovelli said. The committee for the Hammonton Food Truck Festival was eager to do something which would appeal to the age demographic of 20-to-40-year-olds, Iacovelli stated. “This is open to everybody, but this will definitely be targeted to our, one of our younger demographics than some of our other events. They have stepped up and said they will make it happen, and they have,” Iacovelli said. Iacovelli expressed that the committee has been doing extensive research of other areas that have food truck festivals to gauge what it will take to operate it successfully. The decision is to make this event similar to how the traditional Hammonton Cruisin’ MainStreet is setup. “The food trucks will be lined up Bellevue Avenue and along Egg Harbor Road, and across the tracks over by Front Street and Railroad Avenue. We will be closing down Central Avenue and Egg Harbor Road on that stretch like we do for the Cruisin’ MainStreet event,” Iacovelli said. Hammonton-based band Stealing Savanah will be the featured performers at the food truck festival, along with other local entertainment. “We intend to have an art district section of the festival to showcase local artists and live entertainment from those who have ties to Hammonton. A few of t