SERVE Noblesville is collaborating with the city’s newly-formed Community Diversity Committee to host a Cultural Fair on the Courthouse Square in downtown Noblesville. The event is scheduled for 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, June 29, during SERVE’s sixth annual volunteer blitz.
The new event promises to showcase food, music and other traditions from more than a half dozen different regions, including Puerto Rico, Kenya, Venezuela, Belgium and West Africa. Representatives of the various cultures will have booths on the Square, where they will greet guests and share information about their countries of origin.
Games and a photo booth also are planned, and attendees will receive guidance on how to interact and learn from those who are perceived to be “different.”
“The hope is to raise awareness about the variety of neighbors we have living in our community that are from various countries and cultures,” said Patrick Propst, SERVE Noblesville chairman and the lead pastor at Faith Community Church. “We want to help improve inclusion in our community.”
Noblesville business owner Emily Awour Wasonga, who grew up in Kenya and Botswana before moving to Indiana in 2004, is helping to organize the inaugural Cultural Fair. She shared her favorite Mother Teresa quote to explain why: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
“We have to start somewhere,” Wasonga said.
This is SERVE Noblesville’s sixth year of “connecting compassionate neighbors.” Organizers expect to mobilize more than 800 volunteers June 27-30, tackling more than 60 projects in and around Noblesville. Service projects run the gamut from assembling nutritional meals for food panties to completing critical home repairs – and pretty much everything in between.
Although pre-registration is preferred, volunteers can sign up during SERVE Noblesville. Volunteers’ days begin at 8 a.m. at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds, and they are dispatched to projects from there. Work typically wraps up by 4 p.m. each day.
Visit SERVEnoblesville.com to learn more, or follow SERVE Noblesville on Facebook for updates.