Indigi-fest to celebrate Indigenous culture through food, dancing and other workshops

Grand Valley's Office of Multicultural Affairs will host Indigi-fest on Nov. 20 with sessions starting at 10:30 a.m. The event is intended to celebrate and educate the community on Indigenous culture and traditions as well as to introduce attendees to components of a Powwow celebration, which Grand Valley holds annually in April.

"This is for the Grand Valley community to learn and engage with Indigenous culture, histories and beliefs and have the time for them to reflect," said fourth-year student Simon Baker. "We want to show the campus that this culture that is still thriving, that it is very much still alive."

Indigi-fest will kick off with a tribal governance workshop and continue with a series of workshops and sessions throughout the day. Attendees are encouraged to drop in as they are able and are not required to stay for the entirety of the event.

Baker, who serves as the financial advisor of GVSU's Native American Student Association, hopes that students will find a topic that they are interested in or that relates to their area of study to attend. For him, it's the food sovereignty session, which will explore manoomin, or wild rice, which is a vital part of Anishinaabe food sovereignty and environmental protection efforts, specifically within the Great Lakes region.

"Environmental and sustainability studies is my major. Specifically, I'm really interested in sustainable agriculture. Wild rice, or manoomin, is a really important staple food, especially in the Great Lakes and in my community and tribe," Baker said.