Welcoming Roanoke

Welcoming Week | September 10-19, 2021

Past 2021 Events:

Thursday, September 9

5:30 PM -- Maury Strauss Distinguished Public Lecture: Cancer Control in the 21st Century with Special Attention to Disparities in Health, with Dr. Otis W. Brawley, presented by Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, Room M203, 2 Riverside Circle

6:00 PM -- Livestream Event from Welcoming America, on Facebook and YouTube

Friday, September 10

11:30 AM -- Welcoming Week Kick-Off Ceremony, 4th floor of Municipal Building

6:15 PM -- 1K Kids Fun Run and 5K Walk/Run, Roanoke Runs for Refugees, Wasena Park (click here to sign up)

Saturday, September 11

10:00 AM - 3:00 PM -- Scavenger Hunt and Community Vendor Fair, downtown and Main Library

Sunday, September 12

3:00 - 5:00 PM -- International Soccer Cup, Rivers Edge North (click here for our activity waiver)

Wednesday, September 15

10:30 AM -- Bilingual Story Time, Main Library downtown (in person and on our Facebook page!)

Thursday, September 16

5:30 PM -- Live Cooking Demo online, a special celebration for Mexican Independence Day!

5:30 PM -- Maury Strauss Distinguished Public Lecture: Social Inequities in Health: What Each One of Us Can Do, with Dr. David R. Williams, presented by Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, via Zoom

Friday, September 17

6:30 PM -- Salsa Lessons with Salsa Noke, Century Plaza

Saturday, September 18

1:00 - 4:30 PM -- International Taste of Roanoke Tour, all over Roanoke! (pick up your passports at any Roanoke City Library)

Wednesday, October 20

5:30 PM -- Adult Multilingual Spelling Bee, Williamson Road Branch Library

Roanoke, VA strives to be a welcoming and inclusive community year round!

For more information about Welcoming Week & Welcoming America, click here.

Everyone is welcome in the City of Roanoke.

Welcoming Week (#welcomingroanoke; #welcoming week; #belongingbeginswithus; #IAmAWelcomer)

The City of Roanoke celebrated its first Welcoming Week in September 2018. More than 400 people participated in a wide variety of events, including a Soccer Party, Intro to Arabic Class, Multilingual Adult Spelling Bee, a free Cultural Intelligence Workshop, Community Potluck and Immigration Discussion, Welcoming Week Trivia, and a LatinX Job Fair. In addition to hosting events, the city distributed 2,400+ welcomer buttons, stickers, flyers, postcards, and posters throughout the community.

The City of Roanoke has received the Gateways for Growth Challenge grant, which will provide technical assistance in creating an immigrant integration plan to help make our community more welcoming and equitable for all people. City staff is diligently working on this plan and will share it later this year.

Find out more information and take the survey at PlanRoanoke.org.

Check out our Welcoming Week "Storyteller Videos" by clicking here.