10^th Annual Unity in Diversity Festival

Reflections of the Event Coordinator

This year’s Fest was a winner. And why not? It had all the right ingredients for a tasty cultural ratatouille.

Probably the most important item in this recipe for success was the fifty or so wonderful volunteers organized by Donna Dolinar and Elvia Bockman. For example, Bill and Donna Dolinar schlepped lots of 8’ tables. Ed Schilling and Phil McKee put up and tore down the big 10’x20’ canopies. April Grossberger and her crew ran an excellent program of children’s activities. Gary Shallenberger, Dan Johnson and I loaded and unloaded 80 folding chairs from PUMC. Many fine folks obtained excellent donations for the silent auction. I hesitate to single out anyone for kudos here, as there were so many hands sharing the load. I count 21 people on the set-up team alone. New this year were the beautiful papal picado and paper flower decorations made by volunteers Carolina and Gloria Miranda. Thanks to all for your hard work! This event couldn’t have happened without you.

So many tasty dishes include many parts that work together in a harmony of flavors. I will mention a few here. In keeping with our diversity theme, PCTN invited Frankie Drikas, aka The Greek Lady, and Praveen Fletcher, who is East-Indian, to sell their culinary wares, offering festival-goers their delicious gyros and curries.

The Town of Paradise has a shining star in the Community Park. This venue seems to me to be a perfect one for this happening. Paul Durr is the Town’s employee who took care of collecting the trash receptacles and insuring that all was well with his “baby”. Thank you Paul! This year’s Fest activities took place mostly uphill of the Depot, which was more central. Kids’ activities and the not-for-profit tables were adjacent and closer to performances. We even had a large earth ball spraying water for kids to cool off…ably looked after by Bob Meads.

Probably the central ingredient in this Diversity Festival salad is the performers. The eight pro bono performances for this PCTN benefit reflect a wide world including Scotland, Senegal, the Middle East, Mexico, South America and Africa. Along with representation from the disability community, this was an opportunity for local talent to share their gifts and for the Fest audience to gain greater understanding of the diverse cultures that make up Butte County. Miguel Medina, multi-instrumentalist with the Andean group “Milagro Andino” wanted us to know he has lived here for 25 years. I think he and his group were happy to have been asked to take part.

Mike Pollard, Festival Coordinator