Sesquicentennial celebration plans being made by ‘150 committee’
Wednesday, March 25, 2015 • The Hammonton Gazette • Page 3
150, from Page 1
Runfolo (representing Greater
Hammonton Chamber of Commerce), Dottie Orlandini (representing MainStreet Hammonton),
Erica Polito (representing the
Hammonton Mothers’ Club),
Susan Coan (representing the
Hammonton Green Committee)
and Joanna Conn (representing as
past entertainment chair of the
centennial celebration) were in attendance at the meeting to discuss
ongoing plans for the town’s
150th birthday celebration next
year.
An executive committee report
was discussed during the first portion of the meeting. Greater Hammonton Chamber of Commerce
Executive Director John Runfolo
talked about giving every organi-
zation, company and other town
service groups the opportunity to
be a part of this celebration.
“We have said time and time
again during this planning process
that there are no demands and
there are no musts in this. It is requests and inclusiveness. We
don’t want to leave anybody out,
but no one has to do anything.
There are no musts, but if you’d
like to be a part of this, great,”
Runfolo said.
The committee is in the midst
of planning an interfaith service
for the entire community, bringing the 22 places of worship in
Hammonton together during the
sesquicentennial celebration.
“Faith is a very important part
of the building of Hammonton.
The first church was a Methodist
church, followed by a Baptist and
a Catholic church, and then St.
Joe coming in the 1920s, plus the
school. All of that is a very important part of our history, and they
had an interfaith get together at
the high school [during the centennial celebration in 1966],”
Runfolo said.
Elsie Baez said some ideas
were discussed with the executive
committee about reaching out to
the different places of worship to
have interfaith services for next
year’s celebration.
“We want to see what their involvement may potentially be.
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Maybe it will involve coming together for a sunrise service or
even the idea of maybe kicking off
the year with a prayer service and
then have the different houses of
worship have interactive stations,
open and free to the community
that way everyone has an opportunity to participate,” Baez said.
The committee remains open to
having events of different magnitudes take place throughout next
year’s sesquicentennial celebration, even incorporating the
themes into traditional town staples.
“As long as the events don’t
conflict with each other, time
wise, and thereby pull away participation, frankly, if you have 365
days of something going on, why
not? Some of them will be large,
some of them will be small, but
having something every day for
the sesquicentennial I think would
be very special and unique,” Dan
Bachalis said.
A commemorative sesquicentennial book will be organized
throughout the remainder of the
year by some members of the
committee, as it will highlight important events in Hammonton’s
history. Runfolo outlined what it
will entail, as he said it will be a
fundraiser that will be presented to
members of town council during
the April 27 meeting. There will
be other sesquicentennial planned
events that will be discussed during that session as well.
“I talked with Harry [Stafford]
a little bit about the editorial content. We have enough content for
hundreds of pages, but we have to
trim it down to 36. There is so
much information. I have done 15
of the Hammonton Chamber
guides, and I have a little tidbit of
the history of Hammonton in there
every time. It is the same thing because the history hasn’t changed.
There is so much more in the history of Hammonton, the history of
the phases of Hammonton, including the agricultural industry, the
fire companies and the disasters of
Hammonton. There is so much
there that you have to edit it. It is
not a history book. It is a commemorative book that highlights
certain things in Hammonton. It is
going to be great, but we have to
make sure we have the highlights
in Hammonton. Maybe we can
load these things on a site, and
have people click this and have
the history photos of Hammonton,” Runfolo said.
Members of the Hammonton
Sesquicentennial Planning Committee also encouraged the launch
of the town sesquicentennial
Facebook page in the near future.
The executive board of the committee will approve the content on
the page before it is put out for
See COMMITTEE, Page 14
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