Alan Hoskins
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
College Advancement
Music, dancing and ethnic foods will fill the Field House at Kansas City Kansas Community Saturday, May 9, for the Fourth Annual “Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival: A Human Family Reunion.”
More than 40 countries, ethnicities and organizations affiliated with Wyandotte County will be represented at the Festival, which will be held from 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Open to the public without charge, parking is also free.
“This is a great opportunity to meet other ‘Dots’ who live, work, attend schools or colleges here or have ties to Wyandotte County,” says KCKCC Professor of Behavioral Science Curtis V. Smith, the coordinator of the Festival which is designed to foster a climate of inclusiveness, promote relations and contacts between people and educate each other about common humanity.
Headlining the entertainment will the Nartan Performance Dance from India along with the Little Darlings Dance team, the Greater Pentecostal Temple Praise Dancers and Strawberry Hill Folk Ensemble; Peruvian, Moroccan, Balinese and Javanese dancing; and vocals by Gene Hernandez, Roger Suggs, Bob and Diana Suckiel and choral music from Thailand.
Shawn Derritt, a counselor at KCKCC, will open the Festival at 11:30 a.m. with the singing of “America the Beautiful” accompanied by Alice Jenkins while the event will close with the singing of “We Are the World” at 5:30 p.m.
Representatives of nearly 20 countries – Brazil, Croatia, Finland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Ireland, Gambia, Germany, Kenya, Liberia, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Scotland, Slovenia and Thailand – will have exhibits and displays including several that will be offering ethnic food for sale or sampling.
A Creative Children’s Corner will feature story telling by Jim Gilliford, Chief of the Wyandot Native Indian Tribe, and video presentations on Italy, Ireland, Indonesia, Thailand and the Wyandot Nation of Kansas. There will also be representatives from the Wyandotte County History Society, Quindaro Museum of History, Grinter House Quilters, Emmett Till Justice Campaign, Hate Busters, Human Relations Commission and NAACP.
The Festival was introduced to celebrate Wyandotte County’s greatest asset – its diversity and all the unique culture of people live, work or attend schools in the county – in 2006 by Karen Hernandez, a member of the KCKCC Board of Trustees and one of the event sponsors. “This is the vision of our College motto, ‘Making Life Better,’ and it was Martin Luther King’s vision of what being part of what ‘Beloved Community’ meant – equal opportunity and justice for all people, built on a solid foundation of agape or brotherly love.”
Festival sponsors include Gene and Karen Hernandez; McAnany, Van Cleave and Phillips; KCKCC Provost Dr. Morteza Ardebili, Human Relations Commission, Emmett Till Justice Campaign, Kansas Sen. David Haley and the Endowment Association, Intercultural Center, the Department of Engineering, Math and Science and the Athletic Department, Security and Buildings and Grounds departments at KCKCC.