by Kelly Rogge, KCKCC
Music, dancing and ethnic foods will fill the Kansas City Kansas Community College Field House as part of the 11th annual Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival: A Human Family Reunion.
The Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival is from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 16, in the KCKCC Field House, 7250 State Ave. Admission and parking are free. Ethnic food will be available for purchase.
The goal of the festival is to celebrate Wyandotte County’s greatest asset – its diversity. Karen Hernandez, co-founder of the festival and a former member of the KCKCC Board of Trustees, said that it is grounded in Martin Luther King’s vision of what being part of a “Beloved Community” meant, equal opportunity and justice built on a solid foundation of agape or brotherly love.
More than 50 organizations, countries and ethnic groups from Wyandotte County will be represented at the festival through booths as well as onstage entertainment. New this year are representatives from Nepal, Hawaiian Islands, Japan, Albania and Ukraine.
Clarence Small, of the Kansas City, Kan. NAACP, will once again serve as master of ceremonies.
The Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department’s Honor Guard will present the colors, followed by Shawn and Gloria Derritt singing “The Star Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful.”
There will also be a ceremonial art donation from India to the KCKCC Foundation by Hira Nair, professor of social and behavioral sciences at KCKCC.
“This is a pleasurable way for people in our community to make connections and experience how the diversity of food, music, art and dance generates a healthy optimistic sense of shared well-being,” said Curtis Smith, one of the organizers for the Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival.”
Another annual tradition is the awarding of the Legends of Diversity Award. It will be presented at 12:05 p.m. to Irene Caudillo and Alvin Sykes.
Caudillo is the president and chief executive officer of El Centro Inc. in Kansas City, Kan. She has worked for the Wyandotte Mental Health Association and the Kansas City, Mo., Health Department and was also the executive director for Youth Opportunities Unlimited Inc., director of family strengthening for Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas and was director of clinic operations for Swope Health Services.
Sykes is a local civil rights activist who was instrumental in getting Congress to pass the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. The act allows the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate and resolve unsolved cases before 1970. Past honorees of the Legends of Diversity Award include Janith English, Kamiasha Tyner, Karen Hernandez, Melanie Scott, Loren Taylor, Pat Adams, Ed Grisnik, Chester Owens, Helen Walsh Folsom and Carol Levers.
Everyone attending the festival will receive a souvenir program with a blank “passport” page that can be stamped at the various booths. All filled passports turned in at the Martin Luther King booth will be eligible for a prize drawing at 5 p.m. A free book will be given to everyone who presents a ticket given to each visitor at the festival entrance. Countries that will be represented this year include Malaysia, Kenya, India, Peru, Mexico, Turkey, Guatemala, Nigeria, Gambia, Ireland, Croatia, Japan, Italy, Albania, Israel and Lithuania, among others.
Among the entertainment groups are Danny Hinds and Ayotunde, a Caribbean drumming and dance group; the Hravatski Obicaj Croatian Orchestra; the St. Monica Inspirational Choir; the West of Marrakesh Dancers; the School of Irish Dance; the Soul Captives Reggae Band; Falun Dafa, a Shen Yun dance demonstration; the Sabor a Peru Dancers; the Tikvah Dancers of Israel; Los Balaidores de Kansas City; Hide in the Shallows, a Costa Rican guitar, cajon and voice performance and the Nartan Dancers of India.
The Creative Children’s Corner will be located under a tent inside the fieldhouse. Students majoring in the education program under Hira Nair will manage the Children’s Corner. Gene Hernandez will be providing magic and balloon artistry. The Kansas City, Kan., Public Mobile Library will be in the outside parking lot. In addition, the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department will offer “Ident-Kid.”
The food court area will include ethnic foods from countries such as India, Peru, Malaysia, West Africa, Mexico and Kenya as well as soul food, prepared by the Renewed Hope Christian Church. There will be free filtered water and mint tea.
“This festival is a celebration of our ethnic and cultural diversity in and around Wyandotte County,” said Karen Hernandez, one of the organizers and co-founders of the Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival. “It is an opportunity to build friendships with people who we might not otherwise even have a chance to meet.”
The Wyandotte County Ethnic Festival Inc. is made possible by the support of KCKCC President Doris Givens and Susan Lindahl, vice president of administrative services at KCKCC; the KCKCC Campus Police and the KCKCC Buildings and Grounds staff. The festival has a new Gold Sponsor this year – KKFI 90.1 FM public radio. The festival is organized by WyCo Ethnic Festival Inc., Karen Hernandez, Barbara Clark-Evans, Clarence Small, Hira Nair and Curtis V. Smith.
For more information on the ethnic festival, visit www.freewebs.com/wycoethnicfestival/.