"I thank you for the invite.  I identify with and appreciate the work you and your family did to make the function a reality; My Spouse and I did the same type of effort in the early seventies.....

"I  very well know those feelings after an affair like that:
You ask yourself was it worthwhile?
Why didn't more people participate in their cultural events?
Am I alone in my way of thinking?
Will I do it again next year?

"The rewards are the satisfaction one gets from participating and more important making things happen!....In this world there are Doers, Get-in the
Way -ers; and Do Nothings...You and your family belong to the Doer tier."

"A thank you to everyone involved in Saturdays event, especially those that contributed time, money and food. I keep meaning to send our hosts a thank you, but I keep forgeting the email address on the kitchen counter so I guess I will have to put that off til next week too.

"The last paragraph seemed pretty harsh at first...the public castigation of slackers... but then I figured you have been droping subtle and not so subtle hints for years
why not try the "tough love" approach.  After this though I would probably not waste the energy getting upset anymore because there will always be people(whether here or in Belize)  who step up to the plate, and always those that don't come through.

"Yes, others may find that they have things they feel are more important to do (meritous or not) so do not actively participate, perhaps because they hold other things more important at the time than cultural identity, but they will only change their mind by seeing your example (an example from a respectable elder of the community) and how you value your culture enough to provide this event to everyone.  It is people like all the active participants that give the gift of cultural identity and memory to the folks that can more easily forget it in their expatriat status.

"Unless you want to start restricting the celebration to active participants (which would be a loss not only for those excluded but for those included), then you need to decide if you would rather have an event with a good turnout(that brings the community together) or an event that divides and creates bad feelings in the
community.

"Yeah ..I know this sucks, but you probably just need to continue just doing it out of love of culture and community and as an act of charity or else decide you don't want to pick up the slack anymore, and become a less active participant.  Getting pissed about how others don't participate will only sour things for you.

"Sorry if these sounded like harsh words but I believe this is a case for that old Christian saying of  "God grant me the serenity to change the things I can, and to accept the things I can't."  It's worth a shot at trying to change people,  be greatful for the ones who step up to the plate and accept those who are just not gonna budge anytime soon."