NEWBERG, Ore. — Newberg will mark the United Nations International Day of Peace with music, games, and food during the updated Oregon PeaceFest, now in its third year.
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Hosted by Newberg’s Three Rotary Clubs alongside the local Kiwanis and Soroptimists clubs, the third annual Oregon PeaceFest is set for Sept. 21 from 2 to 6 p.m. in front of the Chehalem Cultural Center at 415 Sheridan St.
The event began in 2022 as a memorial for Denise Bacon, the late city councilor, and featured concerts, lectures, food carts, and a 5k/10k run/walk.
Dundee resident Mike Caruso of Newberg’s Noon Rotary leads the effort as chair of the Oregon PeaceFest Committee.
“The first two years, it was just fairly attended,” Caruso said. “It went from the Denise Bacon walk and run to the Oregon PeaceFest.”
This year, Caruso worked with a George Fox University marketing class that designed the festival’s logo and expanded outreach.
“Now, we’ve got a lot more social media out there and several different websites,” Caruso said. “I think we’re much more organized and are hoping for 100 to 500 people.”
The free event will feature food carts, two bands, a children’s carnival with games, prizes, and a raffle, plus free bike tune-ups. Local nonprofits will host each carnival game.
The festival starts at 2:15 p.m. with a walk to each peace pole in the area that ends at the entrance of Centennial Park, next to the Chehalem Cultural Center, where the organization is dedicating a new peace pole. The fest will also feature an official dedication of the kinetic statue outside of the cultural center to the late Denise Bacon.
The goal of PeaceFest is to bring the community together through music, food, and educational activities while raising awareness of local nonprofits and the Peace Pole movement.
Peace Poles
Caruso said that in 2017, Portland Rotary member Al Jubitz challenged other clubs in Oregon to install Peace Poles at schools, police departments, and parks.
“We put forth the challenge for 50 Peace Poles in Newberg. The goal was 100 Peace Poles in the northern part of the state, in our district, so we figured this was kind of aggressive,” Caruso said at an August Chehalem Park & Recreation board of directors meeting. “We ended up putting in 53 Peace Poles … and we’ve been working on it ever since. We’re up to about 80 poles [in the Newberg-Dundee area] now … and we’re shooting for a goal of 100 by the end of 2026.”
The Peace Pole movement began with Masahisa Goi, a Hiroshima survivor devastated by the destruction of World War II. In 1955, Goi created a peace prayer that spread worldwide. The United Nations recognized the International Year of Peace in 1986, after which Peace Poles became one of the world’s most visible peace monuments. More than 200,000 now stand globally.
“The idea of the poles was to put it in either four or eight languages, and some of the larger poles have 16 languages,” Caruso said.
Languages on the poles vary depending on the community, from Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese to Arabic and Hebrew.
“It’s not a religious thing at all,” Caruso said. “There’s no denominations; all denominations. Especially in this day and age, we feel it’s very important.”
