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Schools

Hanna Woods Celebrates Diversity with "Taste of Hanna"

Families of Hanna Woods Elementary School gathered at the school to sample foods, see traditional dances and make crafts from around the globe.

Families of Hanna Woods Elementary School students gathered at the school Thursday night for the first annual "Taste of Hanna" event, in honor of the diverse range of cultures represented at the school. Through food, crafts, music and dancing, students and their families experienced a taste of Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Japan and many other countries.

The event, organized by the school's Culture Diversity Committee, is a way of reaching out to the families of an increasingly diverse student body.

"We wanted to make everybody feels welcome and special, and honor all of the different cultures," said Jill Shapiro, head of the committee. "Families who had never set foot in the school except to register their child...they were talking to other parents, I feel like it brought our community a lot closer."

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Shapiro hopes that the cultural event will serve as an icebreaker and make such families feel comfortable enough to get involved in future school events as well.

Valerie Hays, a counselor at the school, said that having an event that is specifically focused on culture encourages people to learn about each others' backgrounds and talk about their own.

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"It's expected that you're going to talk about a culture, you're going to talk about your clothes, you're going to talk about, 'Well where are you from?'" she said. "They might come to an open house, but they're not going to talk about their culture, it'll be about school. So it's just a place where...families are connecting that maybe didn't."

Teachers at the Hanna Woods estimate that there are about 28 different cultures represented at the school, the fastest-growing of which are Indian and Middle-Eastern. Kindergarten teacher Mary Gosney said that over the past five years, she has seen the number of students in her class who are learning English as a second language double.

In the cafeteria was a buffet feast where guests could sample dishes from around the world that were either donated by local restaurants or brought in by parents. There was potato cake from Egypt, kebobs from the Middle East, tamales from Mexico and curried rice from India, among many others.

The gym was host to lively dance demonstrations from Greece, Ireland and African-American cultures. There was also a Haitian dance lesson in the library taught by Kimberly Anderson from the Center of Creative Arts.

Craft and activity stations sprawled across the rest of the library offered guests opportunities to experience a culture from each continent and fill out a "passport" about what they learned. One table offered henna tattoos from Bangladesh, another had a Japanese grandmother demonstrating Japanese calligraphy, another offered hair braiding and beading from Nigeria.

Shapiro, Hays and other members of the Culture Diversity Committee called the first "Taste of Hanna" a huge success and said they definitely plan to make it an annual event. They were hoping for a hundred people to show up, and ended up with more than double that. Next year will require some adjustments to how parking and the indoor traffic flow works, but more than anything else, the organizers were pleased with both the participation and reception of the event.

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