On Saturday, May 18, 2024, the County hosted the Opening of the Beaches Event as part of its year-long Bicentennial celebrations. For this event, the County partnered with The Amelia Island Convention & Visitors Bureau, Wild Amelia and Keep Nassau Beautiful to provide a fun day of activities for all ages at Main Beach and Peter’s Point including live music, food trucks, a kid’s zone, a touch-a-truck area, beer garden, an 8K on the beach, and the popular 15th Annual Wild Amelia Nature Festival. The Wild Amelia Nature Festival featured exhibits, wild animals, kid’s activities and a dozens of nonprofits, organizations and vendors focused on wildlife, nature and conservation.
Featured on the music stage - brought to you by The Amelia - was local favorites including headliner, The Honey Badgers, with special guests Laid Back and The Liberty Blues Band.
Several thousand people attended the event throughout the day, hundreds of which visited our Nassau Vision 2050 Tent to share feedback to help the County plan the next 25 years. Activities were available for all ages and backgrounds including postcards to your future self, interactive exercise boards (with over 100 comments), custom coloring sheets created in collaboration with Keep Nassau Beautiful, a nature-inspired mural backdrop for people to post in front of with Wild Amelia-themed headbands and masks, and more.
The FREE event also included a special guest, Rodney Mills, who was brought onstage to be recognized for his contributions to the music industry. Now a Nassau County resident, Mr. Mills had a very successful music career, earning more than fifty gold and platinum records for engineering, producing, and mastering. Mr. Mills has worked with many chart-topping and legendary artists including, but not limited to, 38 Special, Billy Joe Royal, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Greg Allman, R.E.M. Journey, The Doobie Brothers, Sugarland, The Wallflowers, and The Zac Brown Band. Mr. Mills was presented with a joint Proclamation from the City of Fernandina Beach and the Board of County Commissioners. Then, The Honey Badgers surprised Mr. Mills by playing music from those chart-topping albums.
A special thank you to Richard Restiano with Arts & Culture Nassau for assisting with the art tables in the Vision Tent; to Port Authority Commissioner Justin Taylor for serving as our emcee; and to our Bicentennial Mascot, Charlie the Conductor. Thanks as well to The Amelia and Waste Management for providing their support through sponsorships; and to the City of Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Keep Nassau Beautiful for partnering with us to provide a wonderful community event. We also greatly appreciate everyone that came out to celebrate with us.
Stay tuned for future Bicentennial activities, including our upcoming presence at the Annual 4th of July Celebration in Callahan this summer and our Annual Christmas Tree Lighting in December.
Sabrina Robertson
Public Information Officer