On July 26 the Romanian-American community in Colorado converged on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall for the ninth annual Romanian Festival. The bright sun defied predictions and graced the event throughout the entire day for what was by many accounts a big success.
The festival serves in part as a fundraiser and is organized each year by the Romanian-American Freedom Alliance, a local organization which seeks to provide medical and financial assistance to people in Romania.
Two big tents and a bright banner announcing the “Romanian Festival” in front of the Boulder Courthouse provided the main venue. One tent was transformed into a restaurant serving Romanian specialties such as Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, Vegetable Ratatouille, Chicken Stew, and a variety of tarts. The sale from the food served as the principal source of income for the event, which this year raised over î2,000.
The festival is also intended to educate the local community about Romanian culture and history. In the second main tent were showcased Romanian artifacts, costumes, and books, as well as CDs of prominent Romanian musicians.
But the aspect of the festival that may well have proved most popular with Pearl Street crowd was the folk-dancing, performed by the local dance group “Hora Românească”. Performing Romanian dances every hour throughout the day, this group drew not only a large crowd of spectators but also managed to include many of them in the participatory dances as well.
The festival has proved to be a respected and appreciated event over the years, indicated by the consistently growing crowds and the financial support of the city.
Romanian – American Freedom Alliance History
RAFA was founded in the summer of 1990 as an immediate result of the revolutionary upheaval in Romania in December 1989. With the opening of the borders and the newly found freedoms in Romania, they were eager to help at last our battered native country. Everyone was suggesting ideas: send medication, clothes, food, newsprint for the newly unshackled media. As they contacted people and organizations for donations, they discovered our collections would be made easier if we had a tax-free organization that would represent us and would make these donations tax-deductible. In the fall of 1990 they started officially as an incorporated organization. Since then RAFA helped many familiesfrom Romania with medication, clothes, food, or donations (most of their assistance over the past twelve years has been in the form of money – about î1,000 a year).
