Clockwise from top: The Circle of Song is a tradition at the annual Clearwater Festival. Visitors study one of the environmental exhibits. A butterfly alights on a young girl’s hand in the butterfly tent, a favorite with children. FILE PHOTOS For the past 37 years, the New Jersey Friends of Clearwater (NJFC) Festival has been raising awareness about environmental issues and stewardship of the Earth.
“Watching over Mother Earth” is this year’s theme for the annual festival, which will be held on Saturday, Aug. 11, at Sunset Park in Asbury Park.
This year’s festival will focus on fracking, a controversial method of extracting natural gas by injecting fluids under high pressure into the earth to fracture bedrock.
“Fracking is really a horrible practice. There are a thousand chemicals that go into the earth when they inject that pressurized fluid,” said Joellen Lundy, president of NJFC.
“It is such a physical assault on Mother Earth.”
Participating in the festival will be 22 environmental organizations including the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S Coast Guard, Monmouth County Planning Board, Clean Ocean Action and more.
“We always have at least 20 environmental groups and some years we will get together in a circle to learn about each other,” Lundy said. “We don’t always know each other. It’s a great place for networking.”
This year’s 5th Annual NJ Environmental Justice Roundtable will feature a discussion by urban and workplace leaders of environmental issues disproportionately affecting the young and the poor. The roundtable will take place at 2 p.m. along Bond Street at the Bus for Progress next to NJFC environmental tables
In addition to environmental exhibits, the festival will feature crafters and food vendors as well as green vendors with information about green initiatives such as solar panels.
Entertainment will be presented on three stages located throughout the park with local bands and groups providing musical entertainment.
On the main stage, performers include Poppa John Bug, Arlan Feiles, and headliner Cobra Brothers, who perform blues, funk, R&B, jazz, rock and country.
Children’s performers include Danny Adlerman; magician Robert Francis, known as the Dork of Deception; and Lorraine Stone actress, poet and dancer. The Circle of Song Stage is a feature of each Clearwater Festival and this year includes Jim Crawford, Tony DeSantis, Sharleen Lehey and others.
A festival tradition will continue as audience members play or sing along to folk songs and songs about the environment.
The NJFC is a nonprofit grassroots organization founded by iconic folk singer Pete Seeger more than 40 years ago.
According to Lundy, Seeger launched the sloop Clearwater in the Hudson River and spread awareness about the environment through words, music and action.
Local folksinger Bob Killian established the Clearwater group in Monmouth County in 1974.
“Our main purpose is to raise awareness of environmental issues and to teach children about the environment,” Lundy said.
The NJFC also sponsors a Traveling Environmental Festival with Clearwater members visiting local schools to teach students about environmental issues such as oil spills.
“We use something called a seascape that shows a little town on the edge of a waterway. You put cinnamon on the road and that is an oil spill and then the kids spill water down the street so it goes into the river and they see how the oil gets into the water body,” Lundy said.
In addition, the group joins with other environmental organizations in protests and lobbying.
“We have teamed up with Food and Water Watch and they are the ones that are leading the anti-fracking movement.” Lundy said. “The governor [Chris Christie] has already signed a one-year moratorium and we are trying to get it made permanent this year.”
Lundy said the festival is NJFC’s major activity but the festival came close to being cancelled this year due to lack of funds and sponsorships to cover rising costs.
According to Lundy, a letter was sent out asking for donations and the group was able to raise approximately $3,000.
By adding these funds to a monetary donation from ShopRite, a primary sponsor, and changing operations, the NJFC was able to continue the annual festival.
“We are going to continue to do fundraisers over the year because after the festival we have to start all over again,” Lundy said.
“We don’t charge admission because we want it family accessible and we like it being in Asbury Park because it’s an urban setting. There is a train so not everyone has to drive.”
Lundy explained that the festival is an important vehicle for providing the local community with practical information about living a more environment friendly life.
“If you go table to table,” she said, “you will learn something that you can incorporate into your daily life and become more environmentconscious.”