Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church will host its annual Jamaica celebration beginning at 8 a.m. Sept. 4.
Activities include singing and dancing performances, music, a cabalgata, a dancing horse performance, food booths, games, a volleyball tournament and a dance.
Committee member Alma Lopez said the committee wanted to expand the event this year.
“In past years, (the Jamaica) ends earlier. This year, it will end later.” Lopez said. “We want the event to grow every year for the benefit of the church and each year we strive to make it better.”
DJ Casper of Snyder will provide music beginning at 9 a.m. and Bohemio Alterado, a Dallas band that performs Nortenas, cumbias and huapango style music, will be the main performer for the evening dance, which begins at 6 p.m.
Local performers will include Rebecca Murillo, Nicole Martinez, Andrea Juarez and Gerardo Torres. Their performances will begin at 1 p.m.
A cabalgata horse ride will begin at the Northeast Community Center by the Price Daniel Unit and arrive at the church at 2:30 p.m. Riders will travel down Camp Springs Road, Ave. E and 13th Street. A dancing horse will perform when the calbagata arrives.
There will also be performance by the Matachines, who are Spanish dancers dressed in ceremonial clothing. At 3 p.m., Baile Folkloricos, a folkloric dancing group from St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Abilene, will perform and the Deep Creek Cloggers will perform at 4 p.m.
Food and game booths will open at 10 a.m., with the exception of the Guadalupanas’ food booth, which will open at 8 a.m. in the Guadalupe Center. Food will include breakfast plates, burritos, tamales, menudo, barbacoa, gorditas, chicharron and tacos.
Other food booth items include hot dogs, nachos, hamburgers, snowcones and authentic Mexican items like roasted corn, flautas, tacos de discada, duros preparados, fruit cups and aguas frescas.
Lopez said food sales usually stop around the time the dance starts, but that this year they will have at least one booth open until midnight.
“We have told everyone who is running a food booth to be prepared with more food this year,” Lopez said.
Game booths will include jump houses, a ring toss, hula hoops, sack races and sumo wrestling suit fights.
The volleyball tournament will begin at 8 a.m. and people may still register. The cost is $100 per team of six players. Each team must include at least two women. First and second place teams will receive T-shirts. Call Michelle Martinez at (806) 728-0565 to register.