International Food Bazaar rocks

After several weeks’ preparation, the day finally came: the Annual international food bazaar. The weather is not helping. It started raining right after we started around 11:00 am. And it kept raining after the event ended. Apparently it was not a good weather for the spring festival. However, we were very happy that people flooded into the church where we are having the event. Around 11:30pm, we got information from the volunteers working outside the church offering direction assistance that the parking garage behind the church is totally full.

This year which is the first year that we hold our event in this church. Since the church is redecorated, it is brighter and there is more space for people. However, after 40 minuses after we open, people actually have hard time to find a place to seat. And about this situation, we have no alternative solutions. Since it is raining outside, it is impossible for us to use the space outside the church. And for the same reason, people are reluctant to leave when they finished the food. There were some turnover problems when it comes to the peak around 12:30pm. This time like the 36 times in the past, we only open for 3 hours because of the shortage of the food supply.

My volunteer position is at the information table of international center. My job is to promote the international center and help the fund raising by selling the shirts and cooking and recipe books. It is not busy for those three hours. And I sold plenty stuff and raised about 120 dollars. It is not a lot but I am glad I could help. But I am just one of the volunteers. For this event, we do have enough volunteers and without them, our events couldn’t be that successful.  We considered all the possible things such as how to deal with disable guests, how to show the way for them to get in the building, the control ventilation and heat inside the building, direction assistance from outside building to inside and then outside again.

We have very good feedback from the visitors about the food. They are very happy that we have this event so that they can enjoy lots of different foods at same time with very reasonable price. There are lots of royal guests come back every year with their family. Most of them are from Lafayette and West Lafayette. And I am surprised that students of Purdue University were a little portion of all the visitors.