'One Love: Give Peace A Chance' Festival Hopes To Bridge Divides

BRANFORD, CT — What Ron Smith hopes is that the ‘One Love: Give Peace a Chance’ festival set for Sunday will help to unite people in a world marked by “division, hate and anger.”

Smith is owner of Avant Garde, in business since 1982, it's a holistic wellness center, boutique and salon in Branford.

He said the New Age fest “captures the vision” of Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ and John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace A Chance.’

“It’s so needed right now,” Smith said. “We need more positivity in the world as we’ve seen so much hate resurface. We want to bring people together.”

Smith said that each festival Avant Grade presents takes up to a year to pull together and are always “very well organized.” Though creating one during a pandemic is far more challenging.

The New Age festival “for love and peace,” is being held outdoors and indoors at 328 East Main St. Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival will feature “all things Zen,” fair trade and eco-friendly products from around 70 vendors with lots of handmade and handcrafted New Age items and wares from art to vegan food. There will be music, yoga, a psychic fair, henna tattoos, and wellness events.

One vendor, Tara Buckley of Seven Sisters Arts, is a "Southern transplant who’s married to a former musician cum pastry chef" and has lived in Branford for 22 years. She’s been an actor, journalist, waitress, administrative assistant and self-taught artist. At the festival, she’ll bring eclectic original jewelry, reclaimed wood wall sconces, up-cycled votives, hand-painted clay pots, origami gift bags and more. She said besides creating, her passions are human and animal rights, protecting nature and “being open to all possibilities.”

Another local, Jen Payne, is a writer, author, poet who writes about creativity, mindfulness, nature, and the environment. Saying she’s “ rocking her inner hippie,” she’ll be signing her books — yes, she's the one who wrote a book about discarded dental flossers — talking about her zines, and what that means, “showing off some of the latest and greatest” from her Three Chairs Publishing.

Smith said that it’s also “very important” to showcase small business and the festival does just that. The Age of Aquarius festival in June, for example, had 82 local and regional vendors.

“We want to remind people that though these days, everything is about Big Box stores and big monopolies, that the Mom & Pop shops and the small and very small businesses are the backbone,” he said. “And they’ve been particularly hard hit in this pandemic. So many are struggling to stay afloat.”

The One Love: Give Peace A Chance New Age festival will include both indoor and outdoor vendor booths and events as well as the Avant Garde fair trade and eco-friendly 'All Things Zen' boutique.