Plans are underway to hold a festival in Peachtree City that will feature food and entertainment highlighting the cultural diversity of resident in Peachtree City’s civic and business community.

The two-day event, called “Touch the World in Peachtree City,” is slated for Oct. 6 and 7 this year. Ultimately, planners envision it to become the premiere event that will culminate the city’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2009. A non-profit committee has formed to help develop resources for the event, and the committee has appointed a volunteer executive director to oversee the event’s planning and implementation.

Organizers are now actively recruiting volunteers to assist with many tasks to put on the event, such as site layout, parking and ticketing. They are also seeking sponsors to help make the event a success.

“We’re starting out with a smaller, well contained event at our beautiful City Hall Plaza in the area around the fountain,” said executive director Victoria Peterson. “We want to use this first event as a pilot to see what works best, then we’ll build on that in future years. Eventually, we would like to expand it down into the Drake Field area and possibly even into Lake Peachtree.”

Many people do not realize that Peachtree City is home to a culturally diverse population. Peterson points out that the city has 21 different international companies that have located their businesses here and 11 others have located here and started their own businesses. There are many civic or fraternal organizations that celebrate each culture, such as the Japanese-American Friendship Society and the Daughters of the British Empire.

Touch the World will turn City Hall Plaza into an international bizarre for this event. Large tents will house all participants so that the event can be held rain or shine. Each tent will contain booths featuring local culinary fare, arts and businesses all representing a specific culture.

There will be a central stage with entertainment from local groups as well as acts from outside the area. “We have verbal commitments from several groups already, such as Irish folk music, English folk dancers and a local opera singer,” Peterson said. In addition, there would be roving minstrels and other entertainment that will give the event a true festival flavor.

Peterson also reported that more than 50 groups and businesses have already verbally agreed to participate and eight have agreed to be sponsors.

“We invite all businesses to participate,” she said. “You don’t have to be in the food or entertainment business. Anyone can sponsor a ‘starving artist’ and be part of the event.”

Joel Cowan Jr. has agreed to be the Honorary Chairman of the event and Peachtree City Mayor Harold Logsdon has signed on as Honorary Co-Chair.

Volunteer coordinators are needed in several specific task areas that are vital to a successful event. These include: advertising and public relations; tickets and entry; sponsorships; vendor reservations; parking; security and customer assistance; site layout; and cleanup.

Those interested in being part of this event either as a volunteer or as a sponsor can call Victoria Peterson at 770-631-4726 or email toripeterson12@yahoo.com.

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