Outreach Global hosts second annual Global Community Day Festival

On Saturday, April 15, Outreach Global hosted the second annual Global Community Day Festival at the Auburn University Intramural Fields. The festival was extremely successful thanks to contributions by program sponsors, planning committee members, volunteers, vendors and on-campus and off-campus partners.

The goal of the festival was to create cultural awareness and bridge the gap between the international community and the non-international community on Auburn's campus. This year, more than 600 volunteers and community members attended the festival with participants joining from Atlanta, Opelika, Tuskegee and Dadeville.

The festival kicked off with an opening remark by program creator and Director of the Office of Outreach Global, Elizabeth Quansah. 

“I want top create a space where both the international and non-international community can all come together to share food, music, dance and fashion, so we can all live together as one happy family here in the Auburn-Opelika community,” Quansah said.

Joining her on stage was Andrew Gillespie, assistant provost for International Programs, and Royrickers Cook, vice president for University Outreach. They encouraged the crowd to come together and create opportunities for life-long meaningful impact.

“Outreach is about engaging, and it’s more than just engaging here locally,” Cook said. “It’s about connecting our university to the world, and we want to be able to do that with programming like this that allows our communities to come together. We also want to always create opportunities for our students and our faculty to have an impact in other parts of the world.”

Throughout the day, there was singing, dancing, poems, food and games. The Association of Indonesian Students drew the crowd in, followed by a dance performance by the YunMeng Chinese Dance Group. Other highlights of the festival included the parade of flags by continents, the global attire fashion showcase and a special appearance by Aubie.

Outreach Global is proud to have hosted this event and to have provided a festival that students could participate in and enjoy. 

More information on Outreach Global.