On Saturday, June 22, in the theater hall of Bellevue Community College, we celebrated the second annual “Serbian Children’s Cultural Festival,” which this year was dedicated to a great jubilee – 800 years of the autocephaly of the Serbian Orthodox Church. All ten classes of the “Saint Sava” School in Seattle shined with their performances, from the youngest, who presented the skit “Grandpa and the Turnip,” to the oldest, who honored us with a segment on Serbian history, from the Nemanjić dynasty to the present day. All the performances, from the youngest to the oldest, reminded both students and the audience alike that we, Serbs in America, carry within us culture, history, art, and language as inseparable parts of our identity.

The Festival program lasted about two and a half hours. All ten classes participated: five Serbian language classes, two religious education classes, and three extracurricular activities (folk dance, orchestra, and choir). The program was diverse, joyful, educational, and dynamic, and most importantly, it was clear that the children truly enjoyed their performances. What our students learn throughout the year through lessons, play, song, and theater, they experience as a shared realization that what they carry within them as “Serbian” is worth preserving. This was clearly evident at the Festival.

In our school, among more than seventy students, there is always room for new friends. If you are fortunate enough to live relatively close to our school and have school-aged children, bring them to classes so they too can feel how special it is to learn in a community, among those like them, about who we all are, who they are, and what that “Serbian” part of their Serbian-American identity means.

On the same day, following the Children’s Festival, and the next day on Sunday, a festival of music, dance, and traditional homemade culinary specialties called Serbian Days was held on the grounds of the St. Sava church in Issaquah, gathering a large number of people from Seattle and the surrounding area.