The HOLA Festival Has Become A Staple Of The Evansville Region
written by Alfonso Vidal
The HOLA Festival has become a staple of the Evansville, IN region highlighting the Latino culture, food, and people that work and live in this community. This event showcases the diversity within our own Latino community to an eager crowd that wants to learn and taste more of this rich heritage.
In its 5th year, the HOLA Festival has built its foundations with financial partners like Center Point and Toyota that again this year have been the fuel that allowed HOLA to start the process of organizing the event. The process started with securing the award-winning entertainment that draws the crowd enthusiastic to have fun, dance and listen to their favorite artists.
Ever since the inception of the concept of this festival, the HOLA board decided to offer for FREE the food booth spaces. The idea was that free spaces and the opportunity to start selling food to the public would give upcoming Latino entrepreneurs a head-start for their possible restaurants. As a result, restaurants have started operations in this area like Gollita Peruvian Cuisine located in Morgan Ave, Los Alfaro’s Restaurant located Weinbach Ave and the newest one Los Miranda Restaurant in Washington Ave. Also, food trucks like Cinia’s Salvadorean Kitchen and Taqueria Vargas have operations in Evansville.
The non-for-profit organization HOLA was formed in 2002 as a response to a growing need within the rapidly growing Latino community in Evansville.  In its earlier years, HOLA became an initial bridge between Latinos and many of the organizations and services available in the community. From 2008 to 2013 HOLA, in partnership with Nativity Catholic Church, launched the Juan Diego Latino Center, and developed several programs such as Health Education and Clinics, La Academia, and the HOLA Summer Camp. And in 2016, HOLA launched the HOLA Festival and continues to evolve to best meet the needs of our growing community.
The HOLA Festival has proven to draw a very inclusive crowd and we see the many cultures of southwest Indiana come together inside one of the oldest baseball stadiums in the nation. The festival promotes Evansville as a hub for cultural events across Indiana and beyond. In past years we have had participation from Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, and as far as Alabama. This event also provides a great opportunity for local organizations, corporations, and many other businesses to connect with the Latino community.
Another key partner in this endeavor is Bosse Field, a jewel piece of Americana that becomes the catalyst to compound diversity and inclusion in our region. This baseball field, just like in the movie “A league of their ownâ€, becomes alive to embrace diversity. The old and the new coming together to build an inclusive future that will boost everyone’s life to become a better living community together. Evansville’s Mayor Benjamin Bosse could not have said it better more than 100 years ago “When everyone Boosts, everyone winsâ€.
Are you hungry now?
