CRADLE Events - The Cradle
CRADLE Events - The Cradle
CRADLE Events - The Cradle
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AUTUMN MOON | Festival<br />
Nearly 200 <strong>Cradle</strong> and Family Resource Center parents, children and<br />
friends gathered at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines on<br />
Sunday afternoon, October 8, to celebrate Autumn Moon Festival.<br />
A popular, family-focused holiday observed throughout Asia, Autumn Moon<br />
marks the end of the harvest season and has long been an occasion to give<br />
thanks for the bounty of the land.<br />
Planned especially for families with children from China, Korea, Vietnam,<br />
Cambodia and Taiwan, <strong>The</strong> <strong>Cradle</strong>’s Autumn Moon Festival incorporates traditions<br />
from various Asian countries. <strong>The</strong> children, many in traditional dress,<br />
participated in cultural games, activities and crafts including Vietnamese silk<br />
painting, origami, Chinese mask making and folding Korean fans. <strong>The</strong> Chicago<br />
North Chinese School entertained guests with traditional dances, martial arts<br />
demonstrations and a joyful lion dance and lantern parade. Festival participants<br />
also enjoyed a delicious Asian appetizer buffet.<br />
Top: <strong>The</strong> children receive a martial arts lesson.<br />
Above: Emily Mitchell, 4, wearing a traditional Vietnamese<br />
ao dai (dress) and non la (hat), enjoys the festivities at<br />
Autumn Moon 2006.<br />
4 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Cradle</strong> Newsletter<br />
Autumn Moon Festival is an annual event sponsored by <strong>Cradle</strong> Connections,<br />
a program that works to strengthen friendships and support between <strong>Cradle</strong><br />
adoptive families. We would like to thank volunteer committee members Carole<br />
Braverman, Siobhan Flynn, Andi Herchenbach, Mary Jo O’Donnell, Deb Sawyer<br />
and Bobbi Ann Fulk for helping to organize this year’s festival. Special thanks to<br />
6-year-old Renata Fulk for bringing her piggy bank to donate to the babies in<br />
the Nursery! Her mom believes that events such as Autumn Moon are a great<br />
way to expose Renata to some of her country’s traditions.<br />
“By celebrating and embracing Renata’s ethnic culture, we are helping to instill<br />
her with pride and knowledge of her origins, and also showing her it is something<br />
we value and enjoy as a family,” said Bobbi Ann. “We are learning more<br />
and more about Chinese culture, and by accepting and celebrating these traditions,<br />
it shows our daughter that we embrace cultures that are different than<br />
those we were raised within.”