Since the decision to proceed with the project only allowed about 2 ½ months for planning before the traveling exhibit was to open, the Planning Committee met twice a month at the beginning and weekly during the month preceding the opening celebration. Almost to a person, committee members expressed anxiety and even fear that there was not enough time to execute such an aggressive series of events. At times there was "nervous" laughter about ideas being discussed; skepticism was evident in members’ voices. When interviewed later, one member remarked that he was "0verwhelmed...no clue what to expect–a little suspect." There seemed to be a unanimous yet unspoken feeling that the group was too diverse to ever reach agreement on everything in time to pull off a successful celebration.

Fred Thon, President of Thon Steel and Susan Visser served as informal co-chairs of the committee. Susan developed the agenda and led the discussions concerning arrangements and museum physical space while Fred took the lead on discussions relative to the culture.

Many of the Latinos seemed to know each other and the Anglos knew each other but Anglos did not know many Latinos. During the first few meetings, members were somewhat tentative. The committee makeup was out of the range of experience for most of them. The task of the committee was large and uncertain, and a comfort level needed to be established very quickly if the events were to be successful given such a short time frame. But everyone seemed genuinely committed to work together. It would take lots of trust, vision and energy to coordinate exhibitions, locate sources for authentic food, music and entertainment, coordinate publicity and translate written materials. This would have been a tall order even for an established committee with several months of lead time! Someone said later, after the events, that "...for once, everyone put bickering aside for the success of the event" and another remarked that, "self-ordering chaos became just-in-time implementation".

It was decided that the celebration would begin with the opening of the "Imagining the World" exhibition, on Saturday, March 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. followed by three additional celebrations to be held every two weeks thereafter until the exhibition closed, on May 8, 1999.

The Planning Committee decided the celebration, including the opening reception and all related events, needed a name.

Arte del Corazon del Pueblo–Art from the Heart of the People

This became the name of the series of events and celebrations.

Imagining the World Through Naive Painting was the name of the traveling exhibit organized by the Meridian International Center in collaboration with the Ibero-American Association of Cultural Attaches, Washington, D.C. This stunning exhibition of paintings is from the naive tradition drawn from museums and private collections in Spain and sixteen Latin American countries, including: Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and guest country, Haiti. "Naive" refers to works by artists who are untrained in a formal sense. The depictions are generally of celebrations of life, including holiday celebrations, cultural rituals and marriages, dancing and singing, historic moments and the joys of the everyday.

Crossings is the title of the exhibit by Ramiro Rodriguez, a resident of South Bend. A painter and printmaker, Rodriguez was guided by mythology, alchemy and Jungian psychology in his current body of work, which was created using an introspective and intuitive process. This process came about when the artist made a conscious effort to define the significance of the recurring elements of water in his earlier work. Water has been associated with the unconscious, the feminine, birth or renewal, healing and transformation. These are the associations that interested Rodriguez most while creating his large oil paintings. Rodriguez received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati and his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Art from La Casa de Amistad and the South Bend Community School Corporation included samples of visual art produced by Latino and Hispanic youth at these institutions.

Open Gallery featured works by adults and other children from the community.

In connection with these Art from the Heart of the People exhibitions, various countries were featured at each event. Food, music and dance were representative of each of the sub-cultures, after the March 27 Opening Celebration.

April 10, 1999: Mexico.

April 24, 1999: South America and Spain.

May 8, 1999: Caribbean and Central America.