The One World Festival will be held this weekend at Franklin and Marshall College.

The festival will be held on Sunday, Sept. 11 from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Alumni Sports and Fitness Center.

Deepa Balepur, chair of the One World Festival Committee and president of the Indian Organization of Lancaster County; Dorothy Dulo, the vendor coordinator for the festival and the founder and director of Rafiki Africa; and Dr. Nick Serrano, a retired family physician, member of the Greek Orthodox Parish appeared on Smart Talk to discuss the festival.

The idea for one festival celebrating world cultures actually came about in 2018 when Balepur spoke with a woman at the Indian festival.

"She said, 'Well, today is a very special day for Lancaster County.' And my question was why? Why do you say that?," Balepur said. "And her response was, 'Well, you know, I love Indian food, so I'm starting my day here. And then from here I'm going to go to downtown Lancaster because Rafiki is having their African-American festival there, after which I'm going to go to Long's Park because the Latin American community is having their festival there. Wouldn't it be great if you guys all came together and did this in one spot? It would be so convenient and there would be such fun.'

"And, you know, that kind of just stuck with me. The next day I picked up the phone call the organizers of the other festivals and said, 'I have this crazy idea,'" Balepur said.

There will also be quite the variety of food on Sunday.

"We are going to have Indian food from Taj Mahal. We're going to have African food from Rafiki," said Doolan. "And then we're going to have great food from Gus's restaurant. And then we're going to have Italian food from Piccolo, Italy, and then we're going to have Latin food. A little bit of Mexican food. And then we're going to have African/Southern Soul Food from Exmouth.  It's really fun to see such a variety come together in one location."

The event is free and open to the community, and will be a big celebration of the diverse cultures from the region with food, dancing, shopping and more.

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