The forecast, not the calendar, made the call. On a Thursday morning in late September, the City of Nashua announced that its annual Multicultural Festival would not go on as planned that Saturday. "Due to the forecast of inclement weather on the original event date, the festival has been rescheduled from Saturday, September 26, to Saturday, October 3," the city's statement read. The organizers were blunt about their disappointment and their resolve in the same breath: "We are truly disappointed that we won't be able to celebrate together on the original date. However, we are equally excited that we can still bring our community together for this special event just a short time later. The spirit of the festival remains the same."
So the 2026 Multicultural Festival will now run from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 3, at Le Parc de Notre Renaissance Française, 23 Water Street, on the banks of the Nashua River. Admission is free, no tickets are required, and all are welcome. The event is designed for all ages across its five hours.
What attendees will find is a deliberately broad sampling of the city's cultural life: live performances spanning song, dance, and instrumental music; food from local restaurants; and interactive family activities meant to represent traditions from around the world. The city frames the afternoon as a chance to meet neighbors, share culture, and learn about one another's experiences. Local sponsors include the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Nashua Community College, Triangle Credit Union, the Adult Learning Center, United Way of Greater Nashua, the YMCA, Southern New Hampshire Health, New Hampshire Public Radio, and the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains.
The choice of venue is not incidental. Le Parc de Notre Renaissance Française — Renaissance Park — sits in the heart of historic downtown, ringed by the old mill buildings that gave Nashua its shape. At its center stands a bronze statue, La Dame de Notre Renaissance Française, dedicated on May 19, 2001. Sculpted by Christopher R. Gowell, the six-foot figure rests on a three-foot base and depicts a young mill worker walking with her son. A spindle sits in her pocket, a cross hangs at her neck, and she gazes down at the boy, who holds a French-language book and looks up at her. The plaque explains what the image means: it honors the women and children who worked in the mills during the first half of the twentieth century.
The statue exists because of a specific act of remembering. In the late 1990s, Georgi Hippauf — née Laurin, then an executive assistant in the governor's office — established a Franco-American committee with the goal of erecting a symbol of Franco-American history and pride. She drew on connections with local cultural associations, including the Association des Canado Americains and the Club Richelieu, to build the project from the ground up. The Franco-American community, led by Hippauf as co-chair of the city's French Heritage Committee, privately funded the sculpture. The pedestal is engraved with the names of its principal benefactors.
The history the statue commemorates is the reason the park is an apt stage for a multicultural festival. The first wave of French-Canadian immigrants arrived in Nashua between 1870 and 1872. By 1936, 14,560 of the city's 31,938 residents were French. They worked in the textile mills, and they built schools, churches, and businesses to serve a growing community. The park was later renovated as part of a decade-long effort by the city; at a Renaissance Weekend celebration, Mayor Jim Donchess said, "We've been working to build this park for 10 years, and you can see that it's nearly finished." The weekend also saw the dedication of a collage-style mural by artist J. Graham Carraway, ranging from five to twenty feet tall and covering more than seventy feet, with imagery that honors Nashua's immigrant history alongside native flora and fauna. Eric Drouart, president of the Club Richelieu of Nashua, described the result: the park had become "the jewel box for this statue."
Nashua's newer arrivals have followed the same pattern of settling and contributing. The city is the most diverse in New Hampshire and the second-largest, and its Hispanic, Asian, and African communities — representing dozens of countries — along with its Indian community have become increasingly visible parts of the city's fabric. That shift is reflected in the city's formal posture. In September 2016, the Board of Aldermen voted narrowly, 8-7, to adopt a welcoming city resolution under Mayor Jim Donchess. By 2018, the mayor's office had created a new staff position for constituent services and cultural affairs, filled by Cecilia Ulibarri. In October 2022, Nashua became the first Certified Welcoming city in the Granite State and among the first in New England.
The Multicultural Festival grew out of that same current. In its earlier years it was tied to Welcoming Week, the annual series in which communities bring together immigrants, refugees, and native-born residents. A 2018 edition was held in the cafeteria of Elm Street Middle School, organized by the Nashua Mayor's Office and a Multicultural Festival Planning Committee, and offered free samples of foods from a variety of countries on a first-come, first-served basis. By 2023, a version of the festival was listed at the Nashua Public Library. Over time it moved outdoors to the riverfront park, growing into the larger, open-air event the city now stages. Community groups have made it part of their own calendars along the way; the Chinese Culture Society of Greater Nashua, for instance, has participated in the festival as representatives of Chinese culture.
The rain delay is a small wrinkle in a longer story. The festival's premise — that a mill town built by French-Canadian, Greek, Lithuanian, and Polish workers can keep making room for the people who arrive next — is one the city has been writing for more than a century. On October 3, that story gets an afternoon on the river, with music, food, and neighbors, in a park named for a renaissance and watched over by a mill worker and her son.