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ANNE BROACHECinco de Mayo is celebrated in style along Lock Street with a colorful display of Mexican culture and heritage.
TOMMYTOWN - The colors of Mexico were everywhere.
The red, white and green of its flag hung in streamers from girls' ponytails and wavered in flags draped over boys' bike handlebars.
And the colors fluttered in bows tied around telephone poles along a half-mile stretch of Lock Street on Wednesday afternoon. There, about 300 people, many of them children, turned out for a Cinco de Mayo parade and fiesta organized by Farmworkers Self-Help.
Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.
The procession, led by a wailing fire engine and a color guard comprised of Pasco High School JROTC students, departed from the mint-green Local 43 Union Hall at U.S. 301 and Lock Street about 4 p.m.
Dade City Mayor Scott Black, police Chief Phil Thompson and newly elected City Commission member Steve Van Gorden rode close behind in a silver Mustang convertible.
Sandwiched between cars booming hip-hop through their open windows, students and coordinators of the Farmworker Jobs and Education Program, a social service program sponsored by the school district, were marching for the first time. There are 25 high school students and 35 adults in the program. All derive at least 50 percent of their income, either personally or through their families, from farm work.
Georgina Rivera, 39, has been a teacher and counselor with the program for 41/2 years.
About a dozen of her students walked with the organization's white pickup truck, bedecked in construction-paper Mexican flags that read, "Viva Mexico!"
"We want them to be more sociable, to be able to interact with more people," Rivera said. "Otherwise they stay concentrated in one special area."
Juan Martinez and Elvis Lava, seventh-graders at Weightman Middle, watched from the sidelines as siblings and friends passed by.
"Sometimes we have a party that lasts all day and all night," Lava said, scrambling for a strand of metallic beads tossed by a parade marcher.
Residents along the parade route had been encouraged to decorate their homes with Mexican flair. From the half-dozen that participated, two sheriff's corporals on bicycles selected one they thought was the best - a tan house on the north side of Lock Street with its fence decked out with streamers and balloons. The homeowner, Caterina Corona, had not yet been notified of her win, which meant a $50 Winn-Dixie gift certificate, said Margarita Romo, who heads the Farmworkers Self-Help organization.
A canary yellow pickup truck decked out in Mexican tricolored streamers took the prize for best-decorated parade vehicle. Jose Frias, who runs the Del Carmen Mexican grocery store on Seventh Street, drove the pickup, and relatives dressed in traditional Mexican costume tossed candy from the truckbed. Bob Lorring, who coordinates the Pasco County Toys for Tots program and works closely with Farmworkers Self-Help, was asked to pick the winner.
Onlookers clustered in the shade as the cars and trucks crept past the Twistee Treat ice cream shop, La Onda Dance Club, La Pequena Ristorante and the Friendly Reptile Center.
At the end of the line was Resurrection Park, a 31/2-acre piece of land owned by Farmworkers Self-Help. It plans to build a church there in the future.
Meanwhile, children kicked soccer balls, tossed a Frisbee, sucked on Popsicles and climbed on the jungle gym.
"I think it was bigger and better than ever this year," Romo said.
Under a pavilion volunteers - mainly children and their mothers - competed for donated prizes, ranging from electric fans to baskets of household goods. Some had to run races, some showed off gymnastic feats and others just danced.
The children munched on hot dogs and sipped drinks that Romo had bought cheaply from an area Food Bank. Tampa Electric donated ice for the occasion.
And a new Cinco de Mayo Queen was crowned. Wearing a long white dress, 9-year-old Lorraine Ashley Sanchez accepted the title after raising more money than her three competitors. Her $739 collected will go to the medical clinic run by Farmworkers Self-Help.
Sanchez succeeds Cassie Hoffman, who showed up in an elegant pink dress to pass on her sash and tiara. "I think everybody should have a chance," said 12-year-old Cassie, who raised nearly $500 last year.
Though pleased with the turnout, Romo said she's always dreaming up ways to improve the event - and the area.
As a start, she wants to rename Lock Street to Calle de Milagros. Translation: Street of Miracles.
"If we really want to change this community, then we need to see it as better, not worse," she said. "And Lock Street just seems to lock us in."
But on Wednesday, as she crowded in with children to watch the pavilion games, Romo was beaming. "It makes you feel good to stand back and watch them grow," she said.