Log In | Become a Member

Zora! Festival Includes STEM Program for Middle-, High-Schoolers

January 24, 2014 | WMFE Orlando - The 25th annual Zora! Festival begins Saturday in Eatonville. The two-week festival commemorates the author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up in Eatonville. The festival includes a daylong program for under-represented middle- and high-schoolers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The STEM program takes place Jan. 31st at the University of Central Florida. 

Festival director N.Y. Nathiri says it's a natural fit with the festival's emphasis on community revitalization, because these students represent Eatonville's future. 

"Ultimately we want to make sure that this community is extant, that it is preserved, that it is vibrant and vibrant as long as the United States of America is existing." 

The program also is open to other Central Florida communities like Bithlo and west Orlando. 

Organizers hope to learn how community influence and peer pressure sway students as they choose careers. 

A four-week academic camp is scheduled for this summer.

Hurston is best-known for her 1937 novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God." 

The festival is organized by the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community. It features educational and cultural programs, including an exhibition by artist Robert Pruitt at the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts.

Vivian Hurston Bowden of Winter Park is Hurston's niece. She says the author's writings remain relevent today. 

"When you're reading are you in that situation? Or have you ever been in a situation where you're trying to find yourself, you're trying to find love, you're trying to find social outlets?" 

The festival concludes next weekend. 

 

All active news articles