Junior band holds pageant

The carnival season is on, and as usual the young members of the junior bands are particularly excited. But just as usual, they also have to try and find financial support to make their dreams of dancing in the streets come true.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

These children are not only getting ready for school, they’re getting prepared for this year’s carnival road march. The festivity is only three weeks away and the excitement has been building throughout the city.

The Mahogany Masqueraders is just one of the seven junior bands that will be competing. This two-year-old band has been holding a number of fundraisers to buy costume materials. This Saturday, seven members will be vying for the title of Little Miss Mahogany Masqueraders.

“Hi, my name is Rhaven Petillo and I am proudly representing Flamboyant Street.”

“Hi, my name is Jinelle Jacklyn Meighan and I am proudly representing Iver’s Street.

One person who knows just how nervous the little girls may be is twelve-year-old Tania Williams. On August seventeenth she was crowned Little Miss Carnival, 2003.

Tania Williams, Little Miss Carnival 2003

“Well, I just want to tell them to go and to their best out there and try to win the title for Miss Mahogany.”

Nadia Avila, Band Leader, Mahogany Masqueraders

“This is a fundraising event for our carnival group and also for the children to have fun at the same time. Funding is greatly needed, we don’t have any music for the road march as yet, and the funds that we solicit will go towards the music for the road march this year.”

The Pageant gets underway at six-thirty on Saturday evening at 8400 McKay Boulevard in the Lake Independence Area.