ASB students are hard at work this week preparing for Friday’s assembly in the gym. Ultimately, though, it will be less than what ASB originally hoped for.
Seven cultural groups—including Salsa and Hawaiian dancers—will perform Friday to highlight our campus’s diversity. However, ASB also wanted the celebration followed by a lunchtime international food fair.
ASB envisioned an International Fullerton Fest (IFF) modeled after Sunny Hills’s annual International Food Fair Assembly. After all, the Sunny Hills event is pretty amazing. In addition to an assembly showcasing student taekwondo demonstrations and Chinese, Indian and Latinx club dances, the Lancers will have an hour-long lunch on Feb. 7 with about 20 booths and tables selling foods from around the world. The Sunny Hills Korean Parent Organization sells Korean BBQ and the Chinese booth sells boba. There’ll be shawarma and Indian and Filipino food, too.
So why is the school three miles down the road pulling off a major food festival Friday and Fullerton High School isn’t?
According to ASB adviser Brooke Kerr, the district has strict rules about selling food on campus. For safety reasons and with few exceptions, food must be commercially prepared. Further, the district’s ASB manual says, “During school hours, no food item(s) may be sold on a school campus that conflicts with sales from food services.”
Sunny Hills gets around these rules because they have parent volunteers who bring food from local restaurants. They have over 30 parents carrying mountains of food onto campus. Further, Sunny Hills has been hosting their event in various forms for about 30 years. They have the tradition and infrastructure. Their clubs start planning their contributions to the assembly and food fair early on, making sure their parents put the event on their calendars, too.
Fullerton’s ASB started its plan early. They sent an interest survey to clubs in September but received few responses. ASB sophomore Olivia Chung noted that many clubs declined to even fill out the interest form. “Our clubs here at school are not as involved culturally,” Chung said.
Nonetheless, ASB sophomore Haleigh Garabedian remains optimistic that students will come to embrace a food festival. She sees ASB’s recent efforts as a trial run. “I think that eventually we will get to make this bigger,” Garabedian said. “We just need to introduce it first. This year we are doing an assembly. In the future, we hope to get the PTSA involved.”
On the other hand, because FUHS doesn’t have the long tradition of a food fair like Sunny Hills, district guidelines were to be followed, and that meant clubs could sell only store-bought food.
Club presidents were unenthusiastic about selling prepackaged food. What’s the point? The Tribe Tribune wants Sin Limites selling pan dulce. We want French Club making crepes.
If district rules can’t be bent, the Tribune gives ASB permission to pivot away from the IFF. If ASB’s goal is uniting the campus, it could start by recognizing the things that make FUHS unique.
An outdoor art festival would be a great opportunity to showcase our strengths in visual, performing and culinary arts. BEAST students could have a special effects make-up booth. Farm could set up an old-fashioned petting zoo.
Finally, the Tribune implores the district officials and food services to revise regulations that prevent our ASB from hosting reasonable events. Food brings people together, and there should be a reasonable path for our students to sell some that isn’t prepackaged.
