In the heart of the Valencia High School quad, various cultures were present during the second annual William S. Hart Union High School District “Culture Fest” on Wednesday.
Tables from various cultural clubs throughout the district allowed attendees to experience each culture firsthand, as guests were welcomed with written greetings from various languages written in chalk by the entrance, as well as a range of flags from different countries.
Golden Valley Folklorico, Armenian Dance Group, SCV Chinese Dance Group, and the CalArts Student African Ensemble performed for the crowd in traditional attire and choreography.
Josh Benham, a Valencia math and student activities teacher, said Valencia’s Associated Student Body worked to ensure the event was a success.
“This started as a passion project for one of my now-graduated students, Maya Yiadom. It actually happened a couple of years ago, but Maya took it over last year and made it district-wide. We started doing this during brunch, and it was more of a food giveaway thing for the different communities on campus,” Benham said. “Valencia students do run all of the planning, but we’re super excited that we have every single high school represented here today.”
According to Benham, who has been at Valencia for seven years and the ASB coordinator for five, planning for the event began prior to summer — from late winter to early spring.
“We started to reach out to different groups. A few of them are related to performing groups at different campuses. Our students reached out to the different dance groups, so I can’t even take credit. Getting every high school to buy in and be a part of it, that’s immense growth. I would love for more community members to come out and participate in it. I’m super excited with the way it’s expanded over the last few years,” Benham said.
Spearheading the Culture Fest committee, Valencia Senior Class President Avery Park, 17, said the aim is to make Culture Fest a tradition.
“I started my school’s Korean Culture Club, and we have had little cultural events during the school day. But, Culture Fest is different. It started last year, and it was this outdoor festival. I knew when it happened, the event was so amazing and brought together a community. I just knew I wanted to make it a tradition,” Park said. “I was given the lead to coordinate the event and put it all together. It was a lot of organizing, but it was also such a great experience to reach out and learn so much more about different cultures.”
There was a learning curve that Park, along with seniors Katie Song, 17, Annika Puno, 17, and junior McKenzie Medland, 16, experienced, but Park said the process was rewarding.
“Everyone in the committee is a part of a cultural club, so it’s really simple, because everyone wants to do it. Everyone’s excited to do it, and excited to branch out and reach out. Even though the process of planning it was stressful, and there’s a lot of communication that goes on and it’s a lot of hard work, it definitely just pays off in the end,” Park said. “We really appreciate it as ASB, just seeing our event come to life, it’s really appreciated. We’re so glad to have community involvement, not just at our school.”
Meri Chilingaryan, 17, the first-year president of the Armenian Culture Club, said the event helped connect people.
“Our club is made for Armenian people to come together and just [be immersed] in our culture, because this is the only place where people can meet. I know a lot of people here can’t really speak Armenian, but that is why we’re here — just to enforce our culture, help people meet each other, and communicate together,” Chilingaryan said. “We’re excited to meet a lot of families here, show our dance culture, everything.”