To the Editor:

Jennifer Cebry, chairman of the Newtown Arts Festival, invited the world to the 2018 Newtown Arts Festival and a lot of them showed up.

Under the leadership of Ms Cebry, the Newtown Arts Festival, sponsored by the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission and begun in 2012 as a two-day event, has blossomed into cultural events through October, in celebration of National Arts Month, with the main event two days of the arts and workshops at Fairfield Hills.

The dance and music and art (thank you to SCAN) and the Science of Music and The Cardboard University at the Make and Take Tent have all been supported by volunteers. From high school students to adults, they were the foundation onto which we built our events.

The success of the 2018 Newtown Arts festival will enable the Arts Commission to continue to award scholarships to Newtown graduating seniors, four this year, and grants to Newtown artists and organizations that expand the arts.

What begins with just nine members of The Newtown Cultural Arts Commission expands to include our auxiliary members and, the day of the festival, innumerable volunteers. The work that our volunteers — and all our partnering organizations, especially Newtown Savings Bank, who man the entry — have done has enabled Newtown to embrace and experience the arts on a new and more accessible level. We could not have done it without Ms Cebry’s leadership. To the volunteers, The Newtown Bee, and especially Jen, on behalf of the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission, I thank you.

Laura E. Lerman

Chairman, Newtown Cultural Arts Commission

55 Main Street, Newtown         September 19, 2018