Arts & Culture
Need a break from ramen?
The Pointer
lgern177@uwsp.edu
Variety is the spice of life, so shake up your usual culinary routine and celebrate Black History Month at the 16th annual Soul Food Dinner this Sunday, Feb. 15, starting at 5:30 p.m. in The Laird Room of the Dreyfus University Center.
The dinner is one of the many events sponsored by the Black Student Union, which promotes diversity and cultural understanding of minorities throughout the community.
“We constantly have the chance to eat Chinese food or Japanese food, but we don’t really have, especially in Stevens Point, a restaurant of African American food,” said Martina Spears, BSU’s public relations representative. “We put on Soul Food Dinner to have our university and people of Portage county to have the opportunity to feel what we look for in a meal and what we eat on a daily basis.”
Menu items include catfish, yams, collard greens, jambalaya, mac and cheese, chicken, corn, sweet potato pie, peach cobbler and cornbread. Members of BSU do all of the cooking.
The event is as much about celebrating the past as well as the present. As a BSU Soul Food Dinner brochure quotes writer Sarah Ban Breathnach as saying, “Soul food is our personal passport to the past. It is much more about heritage than it is about hominy.”
But the festivities don’t end with the meal. Besides a welcome speech by Ebony Rhodes and Charmario McMichael and the singing of the black national anthem by Timothy Fair, the event also includes an award ceremony and music by Nick Claudio, Chris Dalzell, Ben Hedquist and Matt Andres.
Although the feature after the dinner is usually poetry, this year Ko-Thi will perform instead.
“This year is a bit different because we will have African dancing, which pushes our main goal even more,” Spears said.
Part of that goal is to promote BSU, whose mission statement, according to the BSU Soul Food dinner brochure, is to focus on creating a welcoming environment for students. They also strive to break down stereotypes associated with the black community by serving as educators and representatives of their heritage, working with all cultural backgrounds and appreciating the similarities and differences between them.
Their hope is to receive the same level of respect and support from the community.
“Our biggest thing for this year’s Soul Food Dinner is we want people to come together as a whole with their family and friends,” Spears said. “We call it a night of unity, or united we stand, divided we fall. We just want everyone to come together and enjoy a good time.”
Tickets for the Soul Food Dinner are available at the University Information and Tickets Center in the DUC or by telephone at 715-346-4100 or 800-838-3378. Prices are $10 for general admission, $5 for UW-SP students and children 12 and under.
Other upcoming events sponsored by the BSU include Gospel Fest on Sat., March 28 in Michelson Hall and Cultural Fest on Sat., May 2 at the Stevens Point Area Senior High School. Contact Martina Spears at 414-793-5204 for further information.
