Spontaneous Celebrations

Spontaneous Celebrations is Jamaica Plain’s community arts headquarters, an organization that uses the arts to build community cultural life and unite and empower people for positive change. It maintains a community cultural center open to all and produces seasonal celebrations in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury. Its signature events are the spring Wake Up the Earth Festival and the fall Lantern Parade, when neighbors carry lanterns to fill Jamaica Pond with light.

The first Wake Up the Earth Festival took place in 1979 on land cleared for a planned highway that a grassroots movement, the South-West Corridor Coalition, managed to stop. A community garden and greenhouse were built on the rubble, and the festival celebrated the highway’s defeat while bringing together communities on both sides of the old wall and railroad tracks. Today it draws more than 7,500 people each year to the Southwest Corridor Park.

What to Know

• The organization has served as a community arts hub for more than 35 years.
• Lantern-making workshops and potlucks at the center lead up to the parade, and lanterns can also be bought on the day.
• Volunteers help with site setup, lantern making, activities, the parade itself and cleanup.
• The center’s building schedule includes singing, dancing and art-making activities.