The International Festival returns to Harrisonburg

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) — After two years without it, the Harrisonburg International Festival returned to downtown Saturday.

“The people you will meet today represent the diversity that is Harrisonburg’s greatest strength,” Mayor Deanna Reed said in her address to the crowd at Saturday’s festival. “We are so lucky that so many people from all over the world have come to Harrisonburg to call home.”

Court Square was lined with stalls of artists, vendors and homemade food exclusive to different countries and cultures.

“It’s an inclusive community based on data from schools that they have 50 languages ​​there, so that means we have quite a diverse community living together,” said board member Abdelrahman Rabie. administration of the Fairfield Center.

Rabie said the fourth week of September has been proclaimed International Festival Week.

“Hopefully in a year or two we’ll be a role model for others since it’s nationwide,” Rabie said.

Cultural clothing, dances, music and food gave people the opportunity, after two years, to be able to share with different members of the community and other cultures a little piece of who they are and where they come from. are coming.

“Today we will come together as neighbors to be a more welcoming and friendly place,” Mayor Reed said in her speech.

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