A feast of friendship

By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kaleigh Quinn moved aside the paper grocery bag she wore -- now a colorful Indian vest -- to reveal the knitted turkey pin fastened to her shirt.
The 5-year-old was showing off the gift from her pen pal Paige Papania.
She said meeting Paige on Monday was the best part of the Thanksgiving feast in the St. Brendan's school classroom, where the Catholic school kindergartners met with students from rural Columbiana county.
Paige was one of the several South Side Middle School eighth-graders who donned paper-and-staple colonial hats for their visit.
For Paige, her favorite part of the day was watching the kindergartners play music and dance with their decorated coffee-can drums.
"The kids are so cute," she said.
"It's just really fun," said fellow eighth-grader Katey Kimpel. "It gives the little kids a chance to have role models if they don't have brothers or sisters to look up to."
"It's a happy thing," added Timmy Cunningham, 6.
Pen-pal program
The feast, with these Mahoning Valley "Indians" and "pilgrims" meeting for the first time, started when kindergarten teacher Kathy Llewellyn started planning with South Side language arts teachers Tom Olenych and Denise Miller.
Llewellyn's daughter, Kristen, is in the eighth-grade class, and Olenych used to teach at St. Brendan's with the school's current principal Paula Ekis.
The teachers decided to start a pen-pal program. The feast came up as a way for the groups to meet.
"I think it's important for kids to meet children from other places -- kids from the suburbs get to meet kids from the city, and they're all the same," Ekis said.
After the youngsters played drums, the older children presented a poem and gave their pen pals gifts. They feasted on bread, sliced turkey, applesauce, cranberry sauce, popcorn, blueberry muffins and apple cider.
Sharing favorites
Olenych said the older pupils were excited to meet the younger children and to see the inner city, where some had never visited. Next month, the eighth-graders will host a Christmas feast at their school in Columbiana.
"I think it's neat, especially to be able to be with the little kids and find out what they like about Thanksgiving," said Kristen Llewellyn, who said letters have shared details about brothers and sisters, pets, favorite movies and favorite colors.
"It's more fun to write to little kids than kids our age. ... They're so cute," said eighth-grader Emily Fowler, who gave her pen pal a blue candy-filled car because she'd learned from a letter that his favorite color is blue.
"It's fun because we get to see what we were like at this age," added eighth-grader Adrian Bosela, who chatted with kindergartner Aidan Hyland.
"She likes Sponge Bob," Aidan said, as he tried to open his gift of glow-in-the dark rubber reptiles.
Evan Trimbur, 6, said the feast was "fun." His favorite part: "Everything."
Kindergartner Maya Peterson told her pen pal, Katey, that her favorite show is "Mary Kate and Ashley."
"I feel good I met my pen pal," the youngster said. "I thought it would be so fun. ... I think she's cool."