Creating A Food Cultural Event

On our Arts Video I talked about different cultures participating in a food event. Lisa wrote in and asked how to take the first steps in her community to bring different cultures together.

Webster City has an organization called All Cultures Equal (ACE). They have a physical location with ESL classes, food bank, homemade kind of vendor fairs regularly, a commercial kitchen, a giant community room and more. Legacy Learning Boone River Valley, a nonprofit that holds workshops that unite art and nature and community, got this idea they should teach food classes from other cultures. It was a partnership that made sense, and the work began.

Here’s how you can bring cultures together over food using the Idea Friendly Method.

Gather Your Crowd:

• Reach out to see what cultures are in town. Ask your friends, business associates and family.
• You can visit the stores other cultures have in your area.
• Ask the students in your high schools who do they know (more diversity in the school systems.) Ask your service organizations too.
• Begin building relationships with these people you don’t know. That can be as simple as sending a thank you card for supporting your community to someone who has a business, shopping in their stores, or visiting another nonprofit or church where they hang out.

Build Connections

• Who knows how to cook different foods – find those connections.
• Will the commercial kitchen work? Find out. (hint – check your local churches, they often have a commercial kitchen.)
• See if another town/region does this kind of thing and visit.

Take small steps.

• Use social media to see who might be interested in this kind of workshop. Ask for ideas.
• Talk to your friends about it.
• Stop by the Coffee Shop and see who might be interested there.
• Talk to the possible instructors and see what they need to teach a group of people. Figure out the money part of it and charge accordingly.
• Think about a way to support a nonprofit with these kind of cooking events.
• People love to support local nonprofits! Have one class. Test it out, see if it works.

Community happens when people talk to each other. Food is a common denominator for all of us.