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Zora Fest! Appreciation Luncheon On Tap

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Contributed by: Adrienne Moore on 9/29/2009

Zora Fest Committee Plans Appreciation Luncheon
To Honor Its Event Organizers, Zora Families

With the 50th anniversary of the death of the late Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston in January 2010, the Zora Fest Committee of Fort Pierce - St. Lucie County is recognizing three former cultural affairs directors and two former committee chairs for their work in establishing and organizing the community's annual Zora Fest!

The honorees will be recognized at an Appreciation Luncheon on Saturday, October 17 at 3 p.m. at Granny's Kitchen at 901 Avenue D in Fort Pierce. Reservations are $25 per person and should be made by October 10 by calling Chair Linda Henderson at 772-834-9227.

Those being honored include: former St. Lucie County Cultural Affairs directors Jon Ward, now with the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency; Debbie Brisson, head of the St. Lucie County Parks and Recreation Dept.; and Jody Bonet, who recently relocated to Denver.

Committee chairs who coordinated the beginning years of Zora Fest! are: Marjorie Harrell, who served for two years as chair and Vera Mann, who served one year as chair and as chair of the St. Lucie Cultural Affairs Council.

Certificates will also be presented to a number of community leaders, whose families knew Hurston when she lived in St. Lucie County. Those include: The Benton Family, the Gaines Family, the Peeks family, the Floyd family, former Lincoln Park Academy, Lincoln Park Junior College and Indian River State College staff member Margaret Paige, former music educator Earl Little, and others.

Checks made be payable to: Zora Fest Committee of Fort Pierce - St. Lucie County. Proceeds from the event will assist the committee in funding Zora Fest: The Legacy, scheduled for April 15 - 18, 2010 in several venues throughout St. Lucie County.

Hurston came to Fort Pierce in 1957 at the request of black newspaper publisher C.E. Bolen to write columns for his newspaper and to teach part-time at Lincoln Park Academy.

She suffered a stroke in 1959 and was placed in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home where she died several months later. She is buried in the Garden of Heavenly Rest Cemetery in Fort Pierce.

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