By Anis Shakirah Mohd Muslimi
Food brings people together, especially at Thanksgiving.
The University of Iowa Center for Diversity and Enrichment, the Provost’s Office, and the International Student and Scholar Services will sponsor this year’s Harvest Dinner from 3 to 5 p.m. at Old Brick, 26 E. Market St., on Nov 26.
Nadine Petty, the director of the UI Diversity Center, said the purpose of the dinner is to provide UI students, staff, faculty, and community members who are not be able to go home for the holidays an opportunity to have dinner, network, and share in fellowship.
She said the term “harvest” was chosen instead of Thanksgiving to be sensitive to the Native American population and people who are uncomfortable with the word
Petty said the dinner is not only open to UI students, faculty and staff, but also to their families and friends as part of the center’s effort to reach out to the community.
“We’ve sent invitations to closer campus partners, but we will also send out invitations to the UI community as a whole after we determine the maximum capacity,” she said. “We hope to host as many as possible across the university and from the Iowa City community.”
Volunteers are still being sought for the event, and a mass email about the dinner will be sent out to people soon, she said.
Harvest Dinner was last held in 2013, and this will be the second year of the event. Petty said the UI Diversity Center hopes to do the dinner annually in the future.
“We’re hoping to put together some games, or ice-breaker-type thing to help initiate conversations and to get people who don’t know each other to talk,” she said. “I’d like to have something that is more interactive.”
The dinner will be catered by Hy-Vee, and included in the menu for the day is baked ham, turkey, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and other choices, Petty said.
Lindsay Jarratt, the diversity-resources manager at the UI Chief Diversity Office and a past volunteer for the event, said she got to know many different people at the dinner.
“It was a nice, warm, casual, and fun experience,” she said. “There aren’t many spaces that brings such a huge mix of folks together, so it was an absolutely amazing way to spend my Thanksgiving.”
Jarratt, who plans on volunteering again this year, said the dinner is a great opportunity for people who are not familiar with American traditions to learn more about it.
“Even if you don’t have someone to come with, you’ll meet someone there,” she said. “The whole point is to help folks get to know each other and not be alone during a holiday.”
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UI graduate student Eric Moy said he went to the previous dinner because he wanted to meet new people.
“It’s just a nice way of putting a lot of people from different parts of the world together to share a meal,” he said.
Jarratt said she hopes people are able to use the opportunities provided at events such as the Harvest Dinner to spread people’s horizons.
“I think any opportunity to meet folks who might be different from us is a gift,” she said. “And university is one of the places where that happens naturally and easily.”