ICF seeks volunteers for annual festival

The Intercultural Festival student organization hosted a social Wednesday night in the University Student Commons to recruit volunteers for its annual spring festival.

Shivani Shodhan, co-director of ICF, said it was a chance for the roughly 200 students at the social to see a glimpse of the components that make up the festival. Students, she said, could submit artworks for display as well as perform at the event. Volunteers may work with committee members to set up its infrastructure and aid with marketing campaigns.

The search for extra help, however, is not limited to the day of the festival, which falls on April 9 this year. It’s a year-round task.

“It’s an opportunity for students to come and see the world through another person’s eyes.”

– Shivani Shodhan, co-director of ICF

“We’re always looking for help,” said Shodhan, adding that 200 students volunteered last year. “The more the merrier.”

ICF, the largest fully student-produced organization at VCU, holds its annual festival to close out a week of foreign-film showings and concerts. The organization works with the Activities Programming Board to create ICF Week, which kicks off with STRUT., a fashion show featuring VCU students as runway models.

The festival celebrates cultural diversity with the participation of more than 50 student organizations. Since its inception in 2002 with the attendance of 500 people, the festival has grown, said Napoleon Peoples, co-director of ICF and director of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. The festival attracted 2,500 people in 2004 and more than 2,000 in April of last year.

“I hope it continues to grow, make a significant impact on the community and the university,” Peoples said. “But most of all that it will become an event where students, faculty, administrators and community come together to celebrate differences.”

Intercultural Festival
April 9
ICF Week
March 31-April 9
For more information visit www.vcuICF.org

VCU, Shodhan said, is one of the most diverse campuses in Virginia, and the festival showcases the university as well as the community’s diversity. Past performances have included dances of various cultures, such as Thai, Irish and Ethiopian. Others performed martial arts, spoken word and acrobatics.

“It’s an opportunity for students to come and see the world through another person’s eyes,” Shodhan said. “We live in a world today where the whole world is kind of melding together, and we’re coming together as one.”

At the social, future volunteers mingled and talked with ICF executive board members. Zepher Potrafka, a third-year sculpture student, said he has volunteered at the festival the last two years and plans to participate this year.

He’s a proponent of the festival’s mission to increase cultural awareness, he said.

“Too often people just come to college and kind of lose their identity trying to blend in,” Potrafka said. “It’s really important we make sure that doesn’t get lost.”