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North Elementary hosts Cultural Night
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A family examined the Italian station during Cultural Night at North Elementary School. The station was put together by the school's second graders.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A young girl got a rainbow painted on her face at the Irish station during Cultural Night at North Elementary School.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.North Elementary School Principal Stephanie Mateja dressed in an authentic Polish dance outfit in honor of her Polish heritage during Cultural Night.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A North Elementary School students got the Irish flag painted on his face during the Cultural Night event.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Volunteers prepared food during Cultural Night at North Elementary School. The food came from Greece, Italy, Ireland and Rwanda.
By TIM CLEVELAND
In an effort to teach diversity and cooperation among its students, North Elementary hosted its first Cultural Night on Oct. 2.
The event went along with Diversity Month, which was celebrated in October.
“It wasn’t just about learning about the countries, it was really a familial kind of event to get people together and more of an awareness about knowing about cultures and knowing about diversity,” said North Principal Stephanie Mateja, who wore an authentic Polish dance outfit in honor of her Polish heritage.
Guidance intern Eleana Vlahos helped put the event together.
“We saw last year from being here that there’s a lot of diversity at North, so we kind of wanted to put a little celebration of the diversity, to kind of bring out some of the cultures and learn more about them,” she said.
Attendees of the event started off by receiving a passport, which they got stamped when they arrived at the five different stations. The stations were Ireland, which was put together by the kindergarten students; Poland, by the first graders; Italy, by the second graders; Greece, by the third graders; and Rwanda, by the fourth graders.
“Each grade level all contributed by doing a different craft,” Vlahos said. “They learned something and also took part in doing something for each country.”
The crafts at each station were: Ireland, four-leaf clovers and a blarney stone; Poland had postage stamps with the national flower of the corn poppy; Italy had gondolas that the students made; Greece had posters of gods and goddesses; Rwanda had basket weaving.
“Each station has an interactive element,” Vlahos said. “The Irish station has face painting and kissing of the blarney stone; Italy has short dialogues in Italian; The St. Demetrios dance Troup from Warren is at the Greek; Poland has the Polish Youngstown organization teach dancing; Rwanda has balancing basket on their heads.”
There was also plenty of food, a lot of it from the various countries.
“So much food, so much generosity,” Mateja said. “We really did not expect a turnout like we got so far. We asked for parent donations as well as outside donations. We got a great response from parents. We tried to have parents bring things that their child was working on.”
Vlahos said doing the project helped the students learned many lessons.
“Through the activities, a lot of them took leadership roles, they learned teamwork, cooperation, opened their minds a little bit and learned a little bit about different cultures,” she said. “A lot of the kids came out and said, I’m from there or I’m from here, so it kind of got them talking about themselves.”