BY LARA BECKER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Operation Reach and Avondale Community Council on Saturday sponsored "Celebrating Families," a festival for parents and children on their way back to school.
There were vendors with multicolored sunglasses, volunteers with voter-registration forms, and free pencils. A few people sat in lawn chairs at the old Samuel Ach Junior High lot on Rockdale Avenue and listened to Miss Black Cincinnati 1998 recite "Tripping Eagles," a poem by Nikki Giovanni.
Winter Pastor, 19, was crowned in April. With her performance Saturday she hoped to impress on the young people listening that even though "it may seem hopeless, it really isn't.
"They can achieve anything they set their minds to," Ms. Pastor said.
Ann Berry, 63, taped Ms. Pastor's message.
"This is an opportunity to get together and have a good time," said Mrs. Berry, of Bond Hill. Other activities included games and giveaways, and workshops on early child development, gang resistance and AIDS.
