Saturday, September 21 2024 saw the first Community International Festival held at Bucknell in collaboration with the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership. Hundreds of people attended the event, which featured performances by international students from Bucknell University and Susquehanna University, food trucks offering delicious snacks and entrees from around the world, a colorful and lively parade of flags down 6th Street, and musical offerings by a visiting gamelan expert from Indonesia and a State College band, Eric Ian Farmer and Friends who performed in the newly constructed Hufnagle Park stage. International students teamed up with community organizations to both distribute information about their work in the area and also to engage visitors with creative cultural activities, such as building an Eiffel Tower out of marshmallows and bamboo skewers, creating your own camel, and painting a cherry blossom tree. A petting zoo with alpacas and other animals was also stationed on 6th Street and was buzzing with activity all day.
A huge thanks goes to members of the organizing team at Bucknell (especially Jennifer Figueroa and Heather Almer from International Scholar and Student Services), the Mayor of Lewisburg (Kendy Alvarez), Omid Mohammedi, President of the Bucknell Global Student Council, the Office of the Provost, the Center for Community Engaged Leadership, Learning and Research, and the Division of Equity and Inclusive Excellence for helping us to realize the vision for this event. Financial support also came from the Degenstein Foundation, Wellspan Evangelical Community Hosptial, and the Open Discourse Coalition. Feedback from our international community underscored how the festival helped to showcase a community to which we all belong and that celebrates cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
