Culture at the end of the rainbow
By Tara Sahdev
If you woke up to booming music filtering through your window on Sunday morning, chances are it came from the sounds of Global Village, a street fair with more than 300 participants.
Thirty-three vendors, 18 performances and five flavors of Skittles came together for this year's Global Village, conducted by the Multicultural Center executive board to celebrate cultural diversity on campus.
Nine different MCC clubs each performed on the blocked-off corner of Market Street and The Alameda where onlookers reveled in the upbeat music.
Even local shops contributed by running booths featuring cultural goods. The result was a street fair with flair, sporting a slogan borrowed from Skittles candy: "Taste the Rainbow."
Isabel Durón, the MCC historian, arranged for the donations from this year's Global Village to go to HomeSafe, a nonprofit organization.
Homesafe helps women and children who are victims of domestic violence to build new homes and make permanent life changes.
For this purpose, one of the booths was dedicated to selling paper Skittles for $1 each with profits going to HomeSafe. Each Skittle offered a space for individuals to write their definition of home.
The Skittles will be given to the victims of domestic violence with whom HomeSafe works. In addition to the donations made by participants at this booth, the MCC and Campus Ministry made donations of $250 each. The combination of these efforts allowed for the MCC to raise $903.50 for HomeSafe.
Approximately 25 percent of the annual budget of the MCC for this year was spent in preparation for Global Village, which took over a month to orchestrate.
In total, an estimated $8,500 was spent on the fair. Mandela Gardner, the public relations officer for the MCC, said that this event is one of the biggest events the executive board puts on all year.
Freshman Endalk Yitref wasn't expecting as huge a turnout, a perspective which many other students shared.
Judy Kuo, director of the MCC, says that the two favorite annual shows, Bhangra and Taiko -- Japanese drumming -- ÃÃÃÃÃÃalways tend to attract a lot of people.
After all the planning, preparation and hard work that went into this event, first-time Global Village planner Kuo said she was "very happy with the results."
Do not let the quiet aftermath deceive you. Though the corner of Market Street may be empty and Sunday mornings calm again, the celebration of culture continues to sweeten our campus in a rainbow of representation.
Contact Tara Sahdev at (408) 551-1918 or tsahdev@scu.edu.