'We have so many supplies to give away and we have so much food that's just sitting at the house now,' Fela Sutton said. 'I'm destroyed and my heart is broken.'
AKRON, Ohio — It was a sad and very frustrating day for many in the Akron Community on Saturday, as Juneteenth celebrations were scheduled throughout the day but none took place.
They were all canceled because on Friday night, City of Akron officials made a last-minute decision to cancel all large public events this weekend due to safety concerns in the wake of the mass shooting that took place in Akron on June 2.
"This is devastating," said Fela Sutton, one of the coordinators of the Akron Black Coalition's 26th Annual Juneteenth Festival. "This hurts my heart. All the effort that is put into this event. All the children who aren't here right now."
She said this to 3News on Saturday as she looked over an empty Stoner Hawkins Park, where the event should have been held.
Sutton said it was six months of planning unfulfilled.
"There's almost 100 to 200 kids here every year and we have so many supplies to give away and we have so much food that's just sitting at the house now," she continued. "I need to give it to the community, and we have to find out where we can still distribute these things to our children. I'm destroyed and my heart is broken. I don't know what to do but to keep working to make sure that this is corrected."
On Friday night, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik announced the cancellation of 11 public events this weekend, sharing a letter he received from eight Akron councilmembers asking that the weekend's Juneteenth celebrations be canceled, with tensions still high over the June 2 mass shooting that left one dead and 27 others injured at a party.
"When I have more than half of Akron City Council saying that these events are irresponsible, I have to weigh that," the mayor said.
Malik stressed that there was no credible threat, but he wanted to take the letter seriously.
Sutton and her co-organizer Matthew Talley are now expressing their frustration over the loss of an important cultural moment, and the tens of thousands of dollars that their events' vendors will lose.
"Things like that happen, they happen everywhere, they happen often, not just in Akron but all over the country," Talley said. "Nobody else cancels their community events because of poor behavior at a private house party."
Saturday afternoon, Akron City Council released a statement saying that they did not ask the mayor to cancel all large public events this weekend, but only Juneteenth ones, concerned over, "inequity of the police staff ratio for the different events."
3News asked the City of Akron for a response to this, and they told us that, "Chief Harding, Chief Henderson, Deputy Service Director Eufrancia Lash, and Mayor Malik worked hard this past week to ensure there was adequate safety staffing for this weekend’s events."
Mayor Malik said in a press conference Friday that he's working with organizers and vendors of the weekend's Juneteenth events to "make everyone whole."
The City of Akron will now host a Juneteenth event on Wednesday at the John S. Knight Center.
Sutton and Talley are saying it won't be the same.
“That's a city event," Talley said. "It's kind of different than a community event. This is for the community, by the community. A lot of these vendors are set up to bring their tents. They're used to outside events. It's a whole different atmosphere. You can't pull food trucks into the John S. Knight Center. There's certain things that you just can't do. The kids can't run free and play. It's just a different environment. It's kind of like the John S. Knight Center is the city corporate version, whereas this is the community version."
But he's encouraging all vendors to attend the event to hopefully reap back their financial losses.
"It probably won't even help a lot of them, but at least it's an opportunity for some of them to maybe get some exposure and make some of their money back because they've invested a lot into being here," Talley concluded.
The City of Akron is still finalizing details of Wednesday's event.
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'This is devastating': Organizers, vendors lose thousands of dollars after Akron's last-minute cancellation of Juneteenth ... - WKYC.com
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