This weekend, the second annual Cranbrook Multicultural Festival will be bringing diversity to Rotary Park. The event runs Saturday, Aug. 22 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Coco Seitz, the president of the Cranbrook Multicultural Society and the executive director of the festival, said the festival is a long overdue celebration of different cultures in Cranbrook.
“There are a lot of immigrants who live in Cranbrook either first generation or second generation,” Seitz said. “Then we have lots of cultures. Last year we thought it would be a good idea to put together a festival to celebrate cultures and also to educate our local children and local residents about the different cultures in Cranbrook.”
Last year there were 12 cultures featured between the three aspects: live music, cuisine and culture booths.
“This year in total we have 18, so we’ve definitely increased the amount of cultures that we’re showcasing,” she said. “Again this is through the three parts of the festival. Some cultures are only there for the cuisine, some are doing performances, then there are eight cultures that have their own cultural booth.”
Many of the booths will feature culturally significant crafts for children to make.
There will also be bocce and soccer.
Cultures will include: Canadian; Japanese; Indian; German; Ktunaxa; Korean; Italian; Irish; Metis; Croatian; French Canadian; Thai; Chinese; Filipino; South African.
There will also be a traditional dress fashion show.
“So people are going to come with their traditional dresses, their Korean gowns and Chinese qipoa, the Ktunaxas will wear their regalia.”
Also all of the cuisines offered will be $5 or less.
“So the idea behind that i everyone can have lunch in the park and sample different kinds of food,” she said.
Last year 2,000 people went out to participate and it was a rainy day, so this year hopefully the weather will be nice and they can get even more people out.
“We’d like to thank our sponsors: Columbia Basin Trust. We got out funding through three different streams, but the actual funding provider is CBT.”