PHILADELPHIA, July 31, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Travel to the Islands without leaving Philadelphia for the 20th Annual Caribbean Festival on the Great Plaza at Penn's Landing located at Columbus Boulevard and Chestnut Street. This free festival of Caribbean culture, music, and food takes place on August 20, 2006, from Noon-8:00 p.m. The celebration is one of ten festivals in the PECO Multicultural Series and part of the 2006 summer season at Penn's Landing, presented by Independence Blue Cross.
The Festival is a culturally rich celebration of 14 Caribbean Islands featuring a collage of sights, sounds and smells. With entertainment as the focal point of the event, the entire family will enjoy the authentic island sounds of Reggae, Roots International beat, Soca/Calypso, Hip-Hop, Gospel, creative dances, ethnic poetry, and educational activities. The Festival intends to recognize the Day as St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
This year's musical entertainment line-up will feature: Jah Way, the St. Vincent & The Grenadines' Solid, Calvary Baptist Church's Youth Mass Choir; United Praise Dancers, the Vincie Women Skit, Axum Reggae band, LaTumba African/Caribbean Jazz ensemble, and Haitian Bizi band. The Festival will also feature Juliana Banton, 2006 Philadelphia Miss Caribbean presenting a Caribbean Court skit.
Also at the Festival, Panamanian Uva LaPanna Poete will stir your soul with her Spoken Words, an inspiring style of word art that blends African consciousness, Spanish verses, and West Indian texture. Since dancing is an important part of Caribbean culture, the celebration also showcases a variety of dance forms, from folkloric to modern, including the versatile St. Lucian Dancer, Tania Isaac, the SOCA Dance Crew.
Fragrant aromas will fill the Great Plaza as the vendors prepare a variety of tempting island cuisine for visitors to enjoy. The Caribbean fete will include escovitched fish and festival cakes, codfish fritters, Jamaican jerk-chicken and hard-dough bread, Jamaican Patties, curried goat and rice and peas, Trinidadian Roti, rotisserie-roasted corn, water coconut, as well as refreshing island beverages.
At the Caribbean marketplace, visitors can browse displays of island fashions, souvenirs, and arts & crafts. In addition, the Caribbean Culture booth will compliment this year's event with featured topics about Caribbean history, fashion and religion. For the youngest attendees, the Festival offers a Caribbean Children's Village to teach children about the African-Caribbean culture awareness.
This Festival, presented by PECO and the Caribbean Festival Committee, now in its 20th year, works to publicize the importance of the Islands and the cultural contribution of the Caribbean community to the Philadelphia region. Most importantly, the event raises scholarship funds for college students of Caribbean descent.
Admission is free for all PECO Multicultural Series events. PECO presents a series of free Multicultural festivals throughout the summer season at the Great Plaza at Penn's Landing.
Supporting the region's diversity has been a longstanding goal for PECO, who has sponsored the multicultural festivals at Penn's Landing for the past ten years. "All of us at PECO are thrilled to return again to the waterfront to support the multicultural festivals," said PECO president Denis O'Brien. "Penn's Landing is a Philadelphia summertime tradition and the PECO Multicultural Series is a fun way for us to celebrate the wide range of diversity represented in our service territory."
PECO is proud to be Philadelphia's hometown energy company and one of the region's most prominent civic supporters. PECO is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and celebrating diversity inside and outside the Company.
Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC). PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 470,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. In 2004, the company delivered 37.5 million megawatt-hours (Mwh) of electricity and 87.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas to residential, business and institutional customers. PECO's energy delivery services generated $4.49 billion in revenue for Exelon.
Founded in 1881, PECO is one of the Greater Philadelphia Region's most active corporate citizens, providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts and culture, education, environmental, economic development and community programs and organizations.
Public Programming at Penn's Landing would not be possible without our presenting sponsor Independence Blue Cross and the continued support of PECO, Commerce Bank, Pennsylvania Lottery and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, all of whom are committed to serving the Greater Philadelphia community.
Penn's Landing Corporation is the non-profit organization responsible for funding and producing public programming at Penn's Landing. Independence Blue Cross is the presenting sponsor of the 2006 Summer Season at Penn's Landing, featuring free programming every weekend Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. All events produced by Penn's Landing Corporation are FREE to the public and on the Great Plaza, the heart of Penn's Landing, Philadelphia's premier riverfront entertainment destination.
For more information on event locations and event details, please call (215) 922-2FUN or visit www.pennslandingcorp.com. The Penn's Landing Corporation website is a virtual resource for the waterfront where visitors can plan to park, play and stay all day at Penn's Landing.
The Penn's Landing Corporation logo is available at http://media.primezone.com/prs/single/?pkgid=349