Coast Guard Community Festival is this weekend in Cape May
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The third annual U.S. Coast Guard Community Festival is this weekend at the Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May.
It’s part of a week-long celebration of the Coast Guard’s ties to Cape May County.
The training center will be open to the public and host ship tours, local vendors, kid activities, live music, silent drill team, K-9, bomb squad, and search-and-rescue demonstrations. Click here for the complete schedule.
“This is an opportunity for us to open the gate, invite in members of the community and share a fun day together,” said Capt. Owen Gibbons, commanding officer of Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. “These types of events bring the service and the community together in a meaningful way that honors our history and our relationship.”
Cape May County is designated as a “Coast Guard Community,” an honor that only one other county and fifteen cities in the nation enjoy.
Training Center Cape May is the only site for Coast Guard recruit training in the country, and 80% of the Coast Guard’s workforce began their enlisted careers in Cape May County. It’s the largest employer in county, where there’s a storied history, according to the county’s government website.
During the beginning of the 19th century, Revenue Cutters, dispatched by the Secretary of the Treasury to collect duties on ships and goods, were stationed in Cape May.
18 patrol boats operating out of Sewell’s Point patrolled for rum runners off the New Jersey coast during
And during World War II, the Coast Guard Mounted Beach Patrol rode the county’s beaches and patrolled with German Shepard to monitor for suspicious activity.
The festival location is 1 Munro Ave in Cape May.
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