The Edmonds Waterfront Center 2025 Juneteenth at the Beach – Celebrating Freedom event, is scheduled for 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday, June 19, at the Edmonds Waterfront Center, 220 Railroad Ave., Edmonds. Food donations are encouraged for the Edmonds Food Bank, and there will be a free screening of the movie Hidden Figures and a complimentary community meal for all.

“The best way to build community engagement is over a meal and the best way to fight food insecurity is to donate food so the least among us can have a meal,” said Donnie Griffin, founder and president of Lift Every Voice Legacy (LEVL), a co-host of the event with the Edmonds Waterfront Center (EWC) and the Edmonds Food Bank. “Our mission is to build communities free of hatred, injustice, and poverty, and by celebrating a Juneteenth Festival Freedom event, we continue along a path thatwas trailblazed for us centuries ago,” Griffin added.

Seattle-area actress and storyteller Eva Abram is returning to the event this year with a special presentation covering the fight for freedom since America’s beginning. Other highlights include brief comments by U.S. Congressman Rick Larsen and State Sen. Marko Liias. Def poetry by William Luckett and JJ, along with a couple of selections by Everett spiritual singer Erie Darby-Wheeler, will enhance the cultural texture of the program, organizers said.

“Co-hosting Juneteenth at the Beach for the last three years at the Edmonds Waterfront Center — the Living Room of Edmonds — enhances our goal to enrich a community of culture where everyone belongs,” said EWC Chief Operating Officer Robin Ullman. The EWC also offers a range of engaging programs, which include providing low-cost meals to seniors combating food insecurity, she addeed.

Adult book reading circles for children, arts and crafts activities for families, and a free screening of the three-time Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures will take place in the EWC building immediately following the outdoor presentation in the parking lot. The Edmonds Waterfront Center is located at 220 Railroad Ave., Edmonds.

Hidden Figures is a critically acclaimed film that tells the inspiring true story of three African American women mathematicians at NASA who played crucial roles in the early years of the U.S. space program.

Juneteenth – also known as Emancipation Day and Freedom Day – is a portmanteau of June 19th and marks the day when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 and informed the last enslaved outpost of African Americans in the Confederate South that they were no longer under bondage.