Central Coast residents are coming together to celebrate Juneteenth with rallies, cooking contests and dancing.
Collective Cultures Creating Change (C4), organized a Juneteenth event with the Santa Maria-Lompoc NAACP and the city of Santa Barbara at Ryon Park in Lompoc Saturday afternoon.
There was fun for the whole family, with arts and crafts, games, food trucks, a raffle and more.
People could participate in a peach cobbler and red velvet cake cooking contest.
C-4 was started in 2018 and is a group of activists addressing inequities in communities.
One attendee said although celebrating the new holiday is fun and important, there is still more work to be done.
"It's about time everybody come together and quit all this killing, shooting, you know, violence. We all need to come together and if we do that, you know, hey, I'll be happy. I know that," attendee Kevin Miller said.
The co-founder of C4 added it's important to have conversations with those around you about why you have the time off to celebrate.
"This is just the beginning, this is just the tip of the iceberg," Cozetta Blow, co-founder of C4 said. "People have been fighting for Juneteenth Day for a long time and even though we haven't had it as a national holiday, we've been celebrating this since Juneteenth started."
There was a free mobile vaccine clinic at the event Saturday as well.
