Going around the world in three in a half hours sounds impossible, unless you were at EvCC Passport day. On May 18th in Jackson Hall, a variety of foreign language clubs and volunteers came to bring different cultures together for a day of fun and learning. It was filled with different foods, dance lessons, music, hand made products, and a worldy expierience.

In one room of the hall, an Indonesia fundraiser was going on, called “My Father’s Home,” where there is a house in Bali, Indonesia that houses 36 children and gives them opportunities they normally wouldn’t have. Kim and Bryan Boyer, who run the organization, came to Passport Day and brought handmade goods from the citizens of Indonesia to sell at EvCC. The products include baskets, wooden figurines, purses, and more. All the proceeds that were earned from the sales were put into fundraising. Kim Boyer said, “We want to help them the most we can. We hope that one day the kids will become lawyers and doctors and scientist. They’ll become great adults, I know it.”

Across the hall in one of the other rooms, it was more chaotic and loud. That’s where dance lessons, like Salsa dancing, were happening, and all the language clubs from the school had booths set up, trying to invite students into their culture. The French club had baked goods, Japanese club had information on their anime festival, and German club had trivia about their country. Not to mention, most of the booths had free candy (total bonus)!

The event was good for student mingling and bonding. There were also several honor students who had presentations to show the public in order to complete an assignment.
EvCC student Amber Lindimen focused her honor’s project on foster children. She had statistics on how many foster children there are in the United States, the treatment of them, their mental stableness, and other details further discussed with it. Some other honor projects were on sex trades and disease.

If the culture, shopping, and learning experiences inside weren’t interesting though, there was a piñata set up outside of the hall. The only reason for that was just some good clean fun, and loads of sugary goodness. The volunteers controlling the station would put a blindfold on a student, spin them around a few times, give them a bat, and let them try to hit the piñatas.

Passport day consisted of three and half hours in which students could shop, eat, learn, and justtake a break from the stress of class. Volunteer Ashton Carter said “It seemed like everybody had a good time. Gave some time away from the books. I liked it. I definitely will volunteer again next year.”