The Canisius Afro-American Society will be continuing one of their traditions on Friday, Nov. 19, holding their annual Soul Food dinner at the dining hall.
After the event was catered last year due to COVID-19 protocols, this year’s dinner is essentially back to normal with the food being prepared by the members of the Afro-American society’s e-board, led by its president, senior Tyonna Acoff.
“It’s a nice event centered around Thanksgiving, but it’s just traditional foods that you would see across a lot of African-American cultures, just to make that student population feel welcome and included,” Acoff said.
Some of the foods that will be offered are baked mac and cheese, yams and cornbread, while breaking away from traditional Thanksgiving foods such as turkey.
The event is also designed to help people learn about and become a little more familiar with a culture that they may not have known much about: “For people that are familiar with it so they feel represented on campus and then for the people that aren’t familiar with it, just take a little time to learn about it,” Acoff said.
Before dinner begins, the Afro-American Society plans to have card games and other games available for people to play and talk to each other before the food is served. They are preparing for about 80 people but they are hoping for even more. Earlier this semester, they held a barbecue event in the quad that Acoff estimated was attended by almost 100 people, so she and the rest of the e-board are hoping for similar numbers for this event.
Overall, Acoff and the rest of the club are very excited to have this event and are hoping it goes well.
“I’m very excited just to see everyone together. It’s so nice to see freshmen come out: they’ve been really interested in programming, so it’ll be nice to see everyone from the different grade levels just eating food, sharing laughter [and] games. We try to make our events fun,” she said. “I’m really excited. It kind of embodies what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about.”
The event will be held in the Grupp Lounge on Friday from 6-8 p.m. Entry is $2.
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