International festival to kickoff Welcoming Week in downtown Gainesville

Bo Diddley Plaza will transform into a melting pot of global culture on Saturday afternoon during this year’s Welcoming Week International Festival — filling the streets with the smells and sounds of delicious food, lively music and a rich sense of community.

The event, organized by the Greater Gainesville International Center and co-sponsored by the city, will launch Gainesville into Welcoming Week 2023, a nationwide celebration of belonging and culture that takes place next week from September 8-17.

The annual campaign is all about inclusivity and collaboration, said former Gainesville mayor Lauren Poe, now president and CEO of the Greater Gainesville International Center.

“We realize that we have a lot of work to do,” Poe said, “And no one person or organization is responsible for doing it.”

About the event

On Saturday, from noon to 5 p.m., Gainesville will do its part to emphasize diversity and cultural exchange. The festival will host international chefs and artists and will feature a variety of live performances, including West African and Japanese music and drumming, as well as African-influenced dance from local children’s dance company Expressive Song & Dance.

At 3 p.m., the crowd is invited to join along for salsa and Bollywood-inspired dance lessons.

About 15 community organizations will also be available to offer health screenings, employment assistance, information on community IDs and other resources. These include UF Health Street, the ​​Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative, the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida and more.

On the food side, guests can expect around eight chefs offering a variety of cuisines ranging from Haitian and Dominican to Indian and West African options.

The festival is free to the public, and the first 250 individuals to RSVP on the international center’s website will receive a $10 voucher that can be redeemed the day of the event.

Welcoming Week

This isn’t the first year Gainesville will celebrate Welcoming Week.

In 2015, the city became the first in Florida to become an official Welcoming City, accompanying Alachua County as the first county in the state to do so.

Since then, the city has been dedicated to ensuring it’s a safe and inclusive place for immigrants, and the Welcoming Week celebration has grown in size, Poe said.

In his last year as mayor, Poe incorporated The Longest Table Dinner, a free community dinner event he organized to encourage relationship-building across Gainesville, into Welcoming Week celebrations.

“We hope that we’re more welcoming and inclusive this year than we were last year but also recognize that there’s a lot of opportunity for improvement,” Poe said. “We’ll continue down that path until we look back and think that we are exactly where we need to be.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville to host Welcoming Week festival downtown