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“Meet Next Gen” finally went ahead with their back-to-school festival on Saturday in Spring Valley.
The group gave away free school supplies and free haircuts with the purpose of getting kids ready for the classroom.
“Meet Next Gen” founder Qui Joacin told News 12 they had trouble trying to hold the event after they had planned for it to take place at Spring Valley’s Memorial Park, but the mayor decided to cancel all event permits. She added the cancellation happened after an altercation at another unaffiliated event took place.
Furthermore, Joacin says she found out that all event permits would be cancelled just three weeks before the festival was supposed to take place.
"So he decided instead of cancelling, he will remove his participation with the event,” she said. “And his removal meant that I had to incur all of the permit fees.”
Those fees were going to cost her organization around $20,000, according to Joacin. The organization couldn't afford this extra cost since they were already giving out free resources to the community - but the community then stepped up to help.
Food Fair Wholesale Fresh Market and other organizations in Spring Valley pitched in to make Saturday’s event happen.
“Meet Next Gen” organizers also teamed up with members from the Upper Room House of Worship, who were also supposed to have a back-to-school drive.
'Now were here at Food Fair and were having a beautiful time,” said Upper Room House of Worship Rev. Teresa Darden. “And its bigger and greater than what we even expected.”
