This event started back in the Summer of 1981 as a small family backyard picnic on Oxford Street in Belvidere, NJ to celebrate the birthday of our Nation on July 4th. With each passing year, more and more family, friends, and neighbors would join us for this budding community event, which always occurs on July 4th - rain or shine.
What has always made this event special was the selfless contributions of food, supplies, and equipment by the community to help make the event happen. Now over 30 years later, this event has grown into a community tradition attracting hundreds of family, friends, neighbors and friends thereof. Due to the perpetual growth of our celebration and to reduce impact on our small town, we made the decision to move the entire celebration to Mackey’s Orchard in 2012.
Although the event has grown to a size beyond expectation, we continue to rely on the variety and volume of contributions by the community. This is especially important in our mission to keep admission free of charge to all attendees, as we could not maintain this mission without such community support. We could not continue to make this happen without your generous donations, whether monetary or in the form of food, supplies, or volunteer efforts. If you are interested in contributing in any form, please click here to visit our Help Out page.
We hope to see you and your families on July 4th, 2014!