International "Block Party" a huge success
I'm hearing rave reviews about the "block party" on campus Friday night. Food and dancing lessons, sharing cultures! Lots of energy in the room, to be sure. I'd love to hear from people who were there to describe their experience of it.
Labels: international, UIS
posted by Ed Wojcicki @ 10:19 PM
3 Comments:
THE STUDENT LIFE BUILDING
THE NEW HAPPENNIN PLACE
In January, the Office of International Student Services gave a welcome luncheon for all incoming International students. I visited with the spring 2008 batch (as they call themselves) of Indian Students. The girls explained to me that they missed their moms home cooked meals. As American, we dine at ethnic restaurants we think we are getting the “real stuff” but we must admit they have “Americanized” their recipes.
Through brainstorming sessions of the OMSA Advisory Committee: Titilayo Agunloye, Ken Au, Yolanda Beamon, Hye-Jeong Chong, Gorette De La Rosa, Erin Evangelista Charles Olivier, Ashwin Prashanth and Natalia Vera, we thought it would be a wonderful educational opportunity to introduce true international “REAL FOOD” and various traditional expressions of cultures to the UIS Community.
This year began with Latin American. Our own graduating students, Paul Orama assisted by Gorette De La Rosa, President of OLAS, provided salsa dance lessons as all cultures intermingled on the dance floor to learn a new cultural dance. OLAS also recruit a group of high school students from Beardstown to provide preview and show them that UIS ROCKS.
A special thanks to the outreach of the Springfield community, we also received donations from A-zt-ca Mexican Grill, Chinese Kitchen, Jamaican Taste, MeKong Cafe, and Xochimilco Authentic Mexican restaurants. Own Indian Students Organization cooked Briyana along with the Muslim Student Organization provided tons of grilled chicken wings with special sauce. We can’t forget Shawntrell, Lynne and Loni who stood out in the rain, grilling soul food for the taste... and Samantha and Titi for clean up detail... you all are the best.
Chinese and International Student Organization symbolized your name on bookmarkers using their lettering symbols and Indian Student Organization provided the art of henna tattoos.
A HUGE thanks to our own moving and cleaning crew and media tech services, without your ongoing support, these events would never take place.
The first International Block Party was only successful due to many unmentioned people that continue to be team players with an ultimate goal to provide the best programming for the entire UIS community. So mark your calendar, who knows where in the world we will travel to next year.
Make sure you stop on by the Student Life Building, where SOC (Student Organization Counsel), Student Center and the newly arrived Diversity Center, has now become the happenin place at UIS.
I went with my husband and we had a great time! It was too bad that the rain kept everyone indoors because it would have been even more fun outside, but the food was delicious and unique and there was a great turnout! It was also fun watching everyone learn to salsa dance.
I thought the block party was a huge success! I was really impressed with the turn out! The food was great as were the activities, and I had a blast! I got to see people I haven't run into for a while and enjoy some excellent ethnic food! We definitely need events like these to happen more often!
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