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Fully 30 percent of the population of Carthage is Hispanic. Hundreds of other residents hail from Europe, Asia and other locations.
Saturday's Festival of Friends allowed Carthage residents from all cultures to display their heritage and the trappings of their home countries in Central Park.
Hundreds of residents spent part of their Saturday afternoon getting to know cultures other than their own.
"We want to get the different communities together and let the cultures interact with each other and get to know each other," said Nancy Encarnacion, a member of the committee that organized the event with Arvest Bank. "It's important that we get to understand the different cultures in Carthage."
Robin Standridge, Drug-Free Communities Coordinator with the Alliance of Southwest Missouri, said she has neighbors who are from Hungary and other neighbors from Laos.
She said this is the ninth year of the Festival of Friends and she hopes the event helps people understand the cultures around them in their own hometown.
Maria Sanchez, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, said she's the only bilingual Realtor in the area and she frequently finds herself helping Hispanic residents who bought property, but found themselves in legal hot water because of the language and cultural barriers.
She said she's currently helping a person in Neosho who was building a house, but whose builder walked away from the project with $100,000 of the homeowner's money.
Sanchez said that person doesn't speak English and she's helping that person by finding and communicating with church groups and other people who can help him build his home before the bank forecloses on it.
"A lot of problems in real estate are caused by miscommunications," Sanchez said. "I'm constantly cleaning up messes caused by a lack of communication because one person doesn't speak the other person's language."
Fully 30 percent of the population of Carthage is Hispanic. Hundreds of other residents hail from Europe, Asia and other locations.
Saturday's Festival of Friends allowed Carthage residents from all cultures to display their heritage and the trappings of their home countries in Central Park.
Hundreds of residents spent part of their Saturday afternoon getting to know cultures other than their own.
"We want to get the different communities together and let the cultures interact with each other and get to know each other," said Nancy Encarnacion, a member of the committee that organized the event with Arvest Bank. "It's important that we get to understand the different cultures in Carthage."
Robin Standridge, Drug-Free Communities Coordinator with the Alliance of Southwest Missouri, said she has neighbors who are from Hungary and other neighbors from Laos.
She said this is the ninth year of the Festival of Friends and she hopes the event helps people understand the cultures around them in their own hometown.
Maria Sanchez, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, said she's the only bilingual Realtor in the area and she frequently finds herself helping Hispanic residents who bought property, but found themselves in legal hot water because of the language and cultural barriers.
She said she's currently helping a person in Neosho who was building a house, but whose builder walked away from the project with $100,000 of the homeowner's money.
Sanchez said that person doesn't speak English and she's helping that person by finding and communicating with church groups and other people who can help him build his home before the bank forecloses on it.
"A lot of problems in real estate are caused by miscommunications," Sanchez said. "I'm constantly cleaning up messes caused by a lack of communication because one person doesn't speak the other person's language."
