Pupils plan to Mix It Up at Lunch

The day is designed to
encourage pupils to
interact with new people.

YOUNGSTOWN — Pupils at more than 20 local schools will join with some 4 million schoolchildren across the country to Mix It Up in their school cafeterias Tuesday.

They have volunteered to participate in a project designed to foster respect and understanding in schools and communities.

This will be the sixth annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day, an effort sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program, encouraging schoolchildren to question and cross social boundaries in their school by stepping out of their cliques and sitting with someone new in the cafeteria for just one day.

“Nowhere on school campuses are social boundaries more obvious than the cafeteria,” said Mix It Up Director Samantha Elliott Briggs. “But it’s also the ideal place for students to tear down these walls and get to know people they might not otherwise meet.”

Schools often use the day to kick off a yearlong exploration of social boundaries.

“Mix It Up is a starting point for better understanding and unity among students,” Briggs said. “Research has shown that Mix It Up has even more powerful results when it’s treated as more than a one-day event.”

More than 10,000 schools across the country are expected to participate in this year’s program, and educators were encouraged to visit www.mixitup.org to obtain free supplies, including posters, brochures and activity booklets.

After last year’s event, organizers again overwhelmingly reported that Mix It Up at Lunch Day successfully encouraged pupils to cross group lines and meet new people, helped foster school spirit and unity, raised awareness about social boundaries, helped students make new friends and made pupils feel more comfortable interacting with different kinds of people, according to Briggs.

Local schools participating in the program include: Brookfield Middle School, Canfield High School, Canfield Middle School, Crestview Middle School in Columbiana, East Palestine Middle School, Columbiana County Educational Opportunity Center in Lisbon, Opportunity School in Lisbon, Mahoning County Educational Service Center’s Lincoln Place campus, Boardman Center Middle School, Boardman High School, Liberty High School, St. Charles School in Youngstown, McKinley Elementary School in Poland, Union Elementary School in Poland, Fitch High School in Austintown, Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, Jefferson Elementary School in Warren, Lawrence County Career and Technical Center in New Castle, Shenango Elementary School in New Castle, New Castle Area Junior-Senior High School and Greenville High School.

“It can change students’ outlook on people who are different from them,” Raven Taylor, a pupil in Louisville, Ky., said in a Mix It Up essay she wrote in the eighth grade. “Everyone should try to make a difference and mix it up. Change the people around you, literally.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society, started its Teaching Tolerance program in 1991 to provide educators with free resources designed to promote respect for differences and an appreciation of diversity. The Mix It Up program began in 2002.