2022 Fall Festival Wrap-Up

by Brooke Yeh | October 25th, 2022

On September 24th, 2022, Glow Cultural Center hosted our annual Fall Festival for the NYC community at Kissena Corridor Park, Flushing. The event was co-organized with New York City Council Member Sandra Ung, NYC Department of Parks, NYPD, FDNY, Glow Foundation, and Coalition for Asian-American Children+Families. Keeping the tradition of our previous Fall Festivals, the event was completely free and open to the public, with as much as five thousand people showing up throughout the afternoon to partake in the festivities.

Participants got to explore more than 60 booths set up by NYC organizations and businesses while enjoying 4.5 hours of diverse cultural performances in addition to free cotton candy, popcorn, and plenty of giveaways. A few attendees showed up dressed in traditional attire, which added to the cultural atmosphere of the festival. The performers in particular showcased beautiful dresses from different provinces in China, Korean hanbok, Mindanao (Southern Philippines) headdress, ghungroo bells from India, and Mexican huipil. The content of the performances were also extremely diverse, from a contemporary dance piece choreographed by Queens College professor and Guggenheim fellow Ying Mei, to an interactive, therapeutic drama for kids by New York Mandarin Playback. In the beginning, the dazzling display of martial arts from Sitan Taichi and the lively Lion Dance troupe drew all eyes towards the stage and created the perfect start for the Festival. Senator John Liu, City Council Members Sandra Ung, Tiffany Kaban, Senior Advisor to New York Deputy Mayor Peter Koo, NYS government appointed Director of Asian American Affairs Elaine Fan, Queens Borough Immigrant Welcome Center Coordinator & Asian American Affairs Liaison Megan Yuan, Queens District Attorney Office representative Elizabeth Bian, and Council Member Christopher Marte representative Steven Wong were all present for the opening ceremony, showing their support for this important event while also thanking all the residents, sponsors, and organizations who came together and were responsible for bringing the 2022 Fall Festival to life.

Many organizations prepared their own activities for festival goers, such as NYC Hanfu’s traditional Chinese games and riddles, Chen Ran Law Group’s arts & crafts, Garden of Hope and Dragon Combat Club’s self defense workshops, and numerous roulette prizes ranging from hand sanitizers to flashlights to tote bags to many other goodies. People of all ages were able to walk away from the festival with their arms full of both tangible and intangible presents, and the laughter of children as they played was the best reward for us co-organizers. At the close of the festival, Glow Cultural Center awarded City Council-approved Volunteer Certificates to our 58 youth volunteers, some who arrived as early as 7am in the morning, to commemorate their hard work and commitment to serving the community. These youth volunteers have been training for the 2022 Fall Festival since July and attended many workshops in order to put on their best performance. Much of their support work, such as operating the cotton candy/popcorn machines, maintaining the lines in front of the bouncy houses, pony rides, and moving tables, chairs, tents, and other equipment around the fairgrounds, was essential to the overall success of the Fall Festival. Glow Cultural Center is blessed to work with such capable partners, individuals, and organizations for the 2022 Fall Festival, and we would like to thank all the generous sponsors that made this event possible, those involved in planning and delivering this wonderful fun-filled Fall Festival, and everyone who came to make this festival as boisterous as could be. The unprecedented number of attendees marks this year’s Fall Festival as the most successful one yet, and we hope to continue making the Annual Fall Festival a fall celebration staple for the Flushing community. Happy Autumn everyone!

Hosting Organizations: New York City Council District 20 Sandra Ung, Department of Parks, NYPD, FDNY, CACF, Glow Foundation, and Glow Community Center

Many thanks to our community partners & friends: