By Cole Strzelecki
On Saturday, March 30, United and Mutually Equal (U&ME) held their World Fest Event. This event is their largest and most in-depth annual event. World Fest is meant to act as a celebration of all world cultures, offering something for everyone.
The U&ME E-board had been planning this event since the fall semester of 2023. All E-board members spent plenty of time ensuring World Fest had plenty of food, performers, giveaways, and raffle prizes. There was just one issue that would have hindered the success of their event: the date.
In planning the event, U&ME unintentionally picked the Saturday of Easter weekend. “At the beginning of the school year when we were picking the date, we had no idea Easter was early,” said U&ME president Naressa Kempadoo. “We already knew the event turnout would be smaller than we are used to for this event.”
United and Mutually Equal typically sees about 400 people stop by for World Fest, so many were worried about its success. However, despite the holiday weekend, the event still saw a great turnout. “We still had a fair number of guests come out!” Kempadoo exclaimed. “The final count was around 190, which was amazing given the circumstances.”
Those 190 guests got to experience a four-hour event that was quite enjoyable. The event took place in the Rivers Memorial Hall arena, which had its walls decorated with many countries’ national flags. Those flags were put up the day before the event, and though it took a while for the club members to achieve this goal, it was well worth the effort as multiple guests walked through the arena to take it all in.
Besides the decor, World Fest featured various food from restaurants in the Springfield area, such as Lily’s Caterers and Talk of the Town. The event also featured plenty of desserts from locations like Crepes Tea House and Hot Oven Cookies. The club also considered eventgoers’ dietary restrictions, offering options such as vegan/meatless foods in what they provided.
The event featured a variety of singers and dancers. Each set of performers received between 15 and 30 minutes of stage time in which to demonstrate their skills. While most of the performances came from off-campus organizations, one featured Western New England University students salsa dancing. “I thought that the entertainment that was booked and scheduled for the event really livened up the crowd,” club Historian Ashton Rutkowski commented. “They got [the audience] on their feet and dancing.”
Lastly, the event featured many giveaways and raffles. U&ME provided most of these, with giveaways featuring airplane-shaped bottle openers and earth-shaped stress balls and raffles featuring items such as a dumpling-making kit, a global cookbook with spices, a crystal tree, a variety of gift cards, and many more. A few vendors were also at the event, such as the popular Leah Cunha Crafts.
Overall, the event offered Western New England University students a fun experience, and the members of U&ME were happy to provide it. “We are so grateful for everyone who came and spent part of their Easter weekend with us,” Kempadoo said. Club Treasurer Nganji Murenzi felt the same. “I thought the event was terrific,” Murenzi remarked. “I’m thankful to everyone who came to support!”
The club is already thinking about their next World Fest, as they have already planned to move it back to November as it has traditionally been. “This year will be very unique for us as it will be the first time we’ve had two World Fests in one year!” exclaimed Kempadoo. Though they have a lot of planning to do until then, United and Mutually Equal plans for next year’s installment of the event to be just as great as this year’s.
