 The Office of International Education and Development hosts International Coffee Hour every Friday in Whitewater Cafe from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. by providing free food and cultural presentations. Photo by Rachel Noel
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by NIKKI ROBERTI
Lifestyles Reporter
It’s Friday afternoon.
You’re bored, broke, and wishing that for once you could have the cultured life you’ve always craved.
Well now your prayers have been answered.
The Office of International Education and Development invites students to join the diverse cultures of the Town of Boone to eat, speak and drink coffee.
International
Coffee Hour will be held each Friday from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in
Whitewater Café, located on the second floor of Plemmons Student Union.
At the
events, students can eat free food from different countries, listen to
music, play trivia and win prizes –all while meeting new people.
Each
Friday a different club with “international elements” will host the
event and provide food, Assistant Director of OIED Natalie Best said.
Not all coffee hours will be hosted by a specific country.
For
example, Appalachian Popular Programming Society’s Appalachian Heritage
Council will present a demonstration on the comparison of Appalachian
mountain music to African music Oct 24.
“I
really like that we have groups sponsoring coffee hour who aren’t
necessarily an international organization but have elements of
international in them,” Best said. “APPS is not an international
organization, but it has international elements, like how the banjo
came from Africa, the president of APPS told me. It gives you a chance
to think about international elements of the organization and highlight
it during the hour.”
Last
year, the International Coffee Hour was structured differently, senior
history and political science major and President of International
Appalachian, or INTAPP, David S. Gill said.
Before
Best revamped Coffee Hour this year, the event consisted of people
sitting down with coffee while listening to a cultural presentation, as
opposed to the social event it is now.
“When
Natalie Best joined as one of the new directors for OIED, she had a
different vision,” Gill said. “It works out better. The numbers are
higher than they were last year.”
The first coffee hour this semester had 165 people come and go over the course of the two-hour period.
Last Friday’s event was also a success, with 154 people in attendance.
Best said the group consisted of international students, professors, people of the community and their children.
Sophomore Spanish major Chris R. Cedrone was in attendance.
“I
wanted to experience the International Coffee Hour and mingle with
people of different ethnicities, use different languages and stuff like
that,” he said.
Not only did he get to meet people like he wanted, Cedrone said he was also surprised at how good the food was.
The international desserts were his favorite.
Mariela Gonzalez, senior tourism major and international student from Costa Rica, also enjoyed meeting new people.
“I love
talking with another person and sharing my experiences: what they’ve
told me about their life and culture,” she said. “It’s great and it’s a
good idea to make it.”
“The best part is that it gives people the opportunity to meet the international students,” Gill said.
“I’m
happy to see that coffee hour is a place the whole community can come
together and get to know theinternational people who live here in
Boone. People get the impression on the surface that Boone doesn’t have
a lot of diversity,” Best said. “For a town that only has 15,000, we do
have a lot of diversity. The
Coffee Hour is centered around a diverse
population so people can come and see that Boone is not homogonous, and
that there are a lot of different people in this community.”
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