Evergreen Park felt as big and broad as the globe, yet as friendly as your own little corner of it, on Saturday afternoon.
“Really nice,” said Muna Mohammed, watching her daughters wiggle around inside hula hoops. Mohammed has moved from Ethiopia to Portland to Vancouver, where she’s lived since 2012, she said. “It’s a beautiful city. Friendly people. Not too crowded.”
The best part: Mohammed and her children walked a whole five minutes down the street to attend the Fourth Plain Multicultural Festival.
“I’m in awe right now,” said Carmen McKibbin as people swarmed her festival information station. McKibbin, a veteran organizer of several previous neighborhood festivals aimed at celebrating local diversity, said those outings have been a mixed bag — moving between sites, not always drawing crowds — but this one seemed to get everything right. The afternoon was still young, McKibbin said, and “this is already a great turnout.”
“We really wanted to bring it back to the Fourth Plain corridor, which is where it originally was,” said board member Erin Timmerman of Fourth Plain Forward, a partnership project between local merchants and the city of Vancouver aimed at improving safety and promoting commerce along Vancouver’s “International District.”
“This area is so full of different cultures,” said Megan Dudley, who came down from Ridgefield with her children to enjoy the festivities — and to scout talent for the second edition of a similar festival that Dudley dreamed up, and steered to fruition, in her hometown earlier this month. Ridgefield’s inaugural multicultural festival was a big success, and Dudley said she was glad to see more of the same happening in central Vancouver. “I love this scene,” she said.
The scene was live music and colorfully costumed dancers; international foods and other products and services from local vendors and businesses; and, many nonprofit agencies and community groups reaching out to Fourth Plain neighbors in need. These included health clinic Sea Mar; the League of United Latin American Citizens and the NAACP Vancouver; Educational Service District 112; the Vancouver Fire Department; a grass-roots voter-registration drive; and the Rose Village Community Health Network — where neighborhood residents Sandra Sandoval and Kim Turner described their outreach work, helping their neighbors get the services and support they need. That means everything from emergency food to health care to help with government bureaucracy, Sandoval said.
Turner, a veteran of the Air Force, said her pet project right now is easier access to mental health counseling for veterans. Veterans are proud people who don’t like to ask for help, she noted — but their suicide rate is tragically high. Turner is even helping distribute painted rocks around the nearby veterans medical center campus that feature a suicide-prevention hotline phone number, she said; you can slip the rock into your pocket, take it home and just look at the nice decoration — or you can turn it around and call the number on the back. That’s a low-key way to help someone who might not ever ask, she said.
As a beaming troupe of young Sikh dancers, the Maharaja Bhangra Group, got ready to take the stage in pink and yellow costumes and turbans, local Sikh community spokesman Pawneet Singh encouraged the audience to get out their cellphones and cameras and post the performance on social media.
“We want to tell the entire city of Vancouver, who are not here today, what they missed. We want to spread the message of peace, justice and equality for all. That’s the message of the turban,” Singh said.
A sticky board near McKibbin’s information station invited comments on what residents love, and what needs changing, about the Fourth Plain corridor.
What they love: “People.” “Restaurants.” “Diversity and tacos.” “Comida y amabilidad. (Food and friendliness.)”
Needing change: “Clean up.” “More crosswalks.” “Slower cars.” “More festivals.”
