At the Ethnic Enrichment Festival, Maselina Conlon wants to give Kansas City a taste of Haiti

The Ethnic Enrichment Festival has been bringing people together to celebrate their different cultures for 44 years now. Maselina Conlon loves the festival for the opportunity to teach people about Haitian culture.
The wooden stand where Maselina Conlon and her family are preparing for Kansas City’s Ethnic Enrichment Festival is bustling on Friday afternoon. People are hanging clothing from Conlon’s business, My Island Roots, which sells apparel that Conlon makes and some that she buys in Haiti. Others are preparing creole dishes to sell to the thousands of visitors who will stop by over the next three days.

Conlon has been participating in the festival since 1997, when she and her family moved to Kansas City from Haiti. After meeting a woman at church who ran the country’s stand, Conlon was inspired to volunteer. She’s been coming back ever since.

“I love it so much because you get involved with a lot of other people and then you get to know about other countries to see how much they love their country as much as you love yours,” Conlon says.