Festival in St. Cloud to Showcase African Culture

ST. CLOUD -- A variety of cultures will come together this Sunday during the first St. Cloud African Cultural Festival. It is being held from 1:00 until 5:00 p.m. at Eastman Park by Lake George.

Spokesman Buddy King says the newly formed African Cultural Organization wants to showcase everything that they have to offer to the community.

We all know that St. Cloud has a stigma behind it, being that it should be called 'White Cloud'.  So we wanted to showcase and kill that stigma and say we are a very big diverse family here, this is a very diverse community, very open and welcoming, and we're a part of it that is here.

The event will include fashion, dance, singing and a lot of food.

Spokesman Armel Nguessan is a student at St. Cloud State University who is originally from the Ivory Coast. He says many countries and their native foods will be represented.

We have some Nigerian foods, we have food from Ghana, from Liberia, from Togo, and from the Ivory Coast.  We just want to share and show African dishes.  It might be something different but I promise you guys will like it.

There will also be a black-owned vendor fair that will highlight businesses with products to buy including food, art and more.