To promote the celebration and understanding of different ethnicities, International Fest, a student- and teacher-run event, will be held on April 11, from 5 to 9 p.m. in the Commons. 

“The most important part of IFest definitely has to be the exposure everyone gets to share their cultures,” student volunteer Atlas Jorgensen said.

It isn’t just about sharing cultures though – IFest is also a great opportunity for students to educate themselves about other cultures.

“People don’t normally celebrate someone else’s religious traditions or cultural traditions,” IFest organizer Glenys McMennamy said. “So this gives people a chance to see that these are traditions and cultures not mysterious or strange, they’re just welcoming and family-oriented and lovely.”

McMennamy said that it is lovely that students from all different backgrounds “cheer like mad” for their peers and their performances.

“It’s not the kind of thing that we usually hear published when we think about multiple cultures coming together,” McMennamy said. “Sometimes we worry that that’s going to be volatile, but instead it’s this wonderful celebratory thing.”

There were 19 cultural booths last year, celebrating cultures across the world, from Mexico to France to Iraq to China.

“IFest on our campus is one of the largest single-day events in the district that is run by students for students in the community, and it is more than likely the largest single-day fundraiser in the district as well,” IFest Organizer Meredith Meece said.

However, IFest didn’t start as this large event, but rather a small event during lunch.

“It started well over 20 years ago on this campus, and it began as a small  assembly where they had a small number of performers on the Commons stage,” Meece said.

Meece also said that IFest grew largely because there are many different ethnicities in the area.

“When we grow up here, we take that for granted,” Meece said.  “We just kind of naturally assume that everywhere you go in the world is going to be as diverse as it is here, and it’s not.”

With this growth, IFest has become an event that requires months of planning ahead of time and many volunteers.

“We absolutely could not do this event without our volunteers, and our teacher volunteers especially,” Meece said.

But there aren’t just parent and teacher volunteers. Many students also participate in running IFest – Joshua Varghese is one.

“My favorite part of IFest is just that there’s so many different cultures and communities that are shown,” student volunteer Joshua Varghese said.

However that is not the only reason Varghese signed up – the event also gives him and other students a platform to share their culture and artistic skills.

“Lola [Contreras] and I had played as a band last year in IFest, and we wanted to do more for IFest,” Varghese said.

With all these moving parts, IFest, even when planned out and with volunteers, feels like “organized chaos” according to Meece.

“I always say to myself the night before, ‘It’s going to be a disaster’, ‘I haven’t had enough time to prepare’, ‘why didn’t we get started sooner oh my goodness’, and then it always pulls together miraculously, and it always goes really well,”  Meece said.

The theme for IFest this year will be ‘a world of sports’, based on how sports are celebrated, different cultural sports, and what place sports and games have in culture.

“It’s not certain that we’re going to yet, but we’re gonna try to have some different and lesser known sport demonstrations available,” McMennamy said.

But specific cultural sports aren’t the only thing IFest organizers want to cover – Meece said she wants students to think “beyond the game”.

“What role do they play in culture?” Meece said. “What role do they play in shaping a culture?”