Now you have plans for the weekend

At first glance, Midwestern Kansas City may not resonate as an international melting pot of cultures, but for the last 30 years, this city’s Parks and Recreation Department has celebrated the diversity of KC’s population with an Ethnic Enrichment Festival. The festival — much like KC’s ethnic community — has grown over the decades, and this year’s event at Swope Park, which kicks off today from 5 to 10 p.m. (and continues from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday), will be one of the biggest.

Parks Department spokeswoman Melinda Minks boasts that, in addition to a German beer garden, 37 food booths will feature everything from French crêpes and Bolivian empañadas to Lithuanian pastries (imported from a bakery in Omaha) and Brazilian feijoada. The entertainment pavilion has

been renovated, so patrons can watch performances in a cool, shady place this year. Adult admission is $3; children 12 and younger get in free. Parking is free, too.

If all the choices at the Ethnic Enrichment Festival are too overwhelming, Saturday’s second-annual Soul Food Festival at Parade Park (the Paseo Boulevard and Truman Road) might be more manageable. Local and traveling food vendors will be on-site to sell single items and dinners, while Sugafoot’s Ohio Players, Peabo Bryson, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Lakeside, Eldredge Jackson and Dru-Hill provide the entertainment.

“Since we aren’t doing Rhythm and Ribs, this will be the first festival-type event this year at the 18th and Vine District,” organizer Elbert Anderson explains. General admission tickets cost $28, and VIP tickets are $50 at the gate, which opens at 3 p.m. (The concert starts at 6

p.m.) See ilovesoulfood.com for details, including table reservations for the 21-and-older event.