Aliso Niguel High School held its yearly multicultural food fair at lunch on April 29, 2026. Each school club had the opportunity to pick food from a country or region, which students could purchase with tickets they bought from the school.
Club presidents left class on this day early to set up their booths and brought their food.
This event is an exciting way to spread culture among the community and open students’ minds to a variety of new cuisines they may not have tried before. They put their stands together and made the food with no help from the school, only themselves and their fellow club members. This delicious fair is a great way to incorporate cultural diversity into the school.
Elin Izadymanesh (10), president of the Aliso Advocacy Club, says, “I thought this event was such a fun way to spread my culture, and the amazing food we have. It was really heartwarming seeing everyone get to indulge in things they hadn’t tried before, and realize they really enjoy it.”
Izadymanesh noted that it made her nervous when people were trying the food, because she wanted to display a good representation of the Bulgarian culture, “I feel like not a lot of people know about how good Bulgarian food is, and it’s not really a culture that gets a lot of representation, so there was pressure to give people a good impression of it.”
As well as spreading culture, the food fair was an opportunity for the club members to spread knowledge about their clubs. Each stand was assigned to one of Aliso Niguel’s many club options that students can join.
Sydney Chan (10), president of the Pad Pack, says, “Food is such an amazing opportunity to bond people together, because it’s something everyone has in common. I loved seeing all the fellow clubs get to advertise their purposes, and got inquiries about my club when people were purchasing our drinks.”
The Pad Pack provided mocktails, representing Singapore, which was one of the delicious options that students could choose from. Her club got to spread its empowering ideas through food. There were options like Sweden, Bangladesh, Iceland, the Philippines, Italy and many more.
This was not only beneficial for the club members but also for the larger student body. This was an encouraging reward to look forward to after hours spent at school working hard in their classes. This was a needed motivation for many students attending the event.
Laurel Roellich (10) says, “It was a super fun thing to have, and gave me something to get excited for during the day. Seeing all the different kinds of food was so unique, and I got to try things I’d never seen or heard of before. I’ll definitely be open to trying more stuff, and will look for some of the things I tried today.”
Events that embrace different cultures and spread diversity make ANHS feel whole, and bring together all the communities at Aliso Niguel into one large one. Aliso’s care for its students’ happiness is shown constantly throughout the year with fun and informative activities on campus.
