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On Saturday the Mehr Foundation of San Antonio hosted the Ancient Persian Autumn Festival.
MEHR Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded with the mission of celebrating and promoting Persian arts and culture. MEHR is managed by the San Antonio Persian Cultural Society.
The festival is based on Mehregan, an ancient celebration which is dedicated to Mehr, the symbol of light, friendship, love and kindness. Mehregan is also the feast of harvest and abundance.
Mojgan Panah is president of the Mehr Foundation.
“It's really all things Iranian or Persian, as some of us say, and a time for the community, the Iranian community and the extended San Antonio community to come out and learn about Persia,” Panah told TPR.
The event was held at the main district office of Alamo Colleges. The event’s theme was “Letters to Iran”
"With all the turmoil and everything that's going on back in our homeland in Iran, we wanted to give people a space, a safe space to come and express their emotions, their thoughts, put their thoughts to a letter, drop it in a box. We've also created old stamps from Persia for them to take with them as memorabilia, but we are going to digitize the letters and post them on our social media and website for everyone to read and understand what everyone else is thinking and share their thoughts about Iran," said Panah.
In attendance was Nazanin Ghahremani. She was dropping her letter to Iran in the box with her message to the Iranian people
“I would like to say that all the Iranian Americans that live outside of Iran, we fully support you, we love you and encourage you to fight for your freedom and never stop believing that you are meant to have the same freedom as everybody else around the world," she said before placing her letter in the box.
The event also featured a lecture on ancient Persian language and culture by Sahba Shayani. Shayani is a lecturer in Persian language at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Persian Autumn Festival also featured food, along with traditional Persian music and dancing.
