Kids add color to Wantagh block party

This year’s face painters, from left, were Jennifer Cabrera, 11, Sarah Amodio, 10, Tatum Kennedy, 10, Michaela Loporto, 11, and Alessandra Lerro, 11.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

Caden Pfaff got some color.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

Gigi Gerbe, 4, had her hand painted by Cabrera at the Auburn Road block party in Wantagh on Aug. 1.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

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An Auburn Road tradition has been placed in the hands of the next generation.

The annual block party is still run by the adults, but the face painting responsibilities this year were passed off to a group of 10- and 11-year-old girls who live on the Wantagh street. The girls spent an hour at the Aug. 1 festivities painting the faces of young children, and even a few teenagers.

Nancy Reedy, Peggy Alt and a few other adults did the face painting for several years, but this year they decided to teach the young ladies on their block a new skill. Alt, who organized the block party along with her daughter, Lauren, held two face-painting classes in her backyard earlier this summer to prepare the girls for their artistic endeavor.

“It worked out wonderful,” Reedy said. “They loved doing it, and they got better and better as they day went on. They’re already talking about how they want to do it next year.”

She added that they decided to have the girls do the face painting to teach them responsibility and art.

Auburn Road, a curved street with about two-dozen houses, runs from Princeton Drive South to Lehigh Road. The block party has been going on for nearly a decade, Reedy said, and the face painting has been a regular activity for the past five years. Other features that day included a DJ, water slide and magician.