Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Students at Saw Mill Road Elementary School in the North Bellmore School District embraced their community’s rich diversity during the second annual Multicultural Night — an event designed to celebrate differences and foster unity through acceptance and understanding.
Organized by Saw Mill Road’s Parent-Teacher Association, the Nov. 15 event featured food, music, presentations and more, highlighting the unique cultures that make up the student body at Saw Mill Road.
Annie Karim, who’s a PTA co-president with Nicole Teague, introduced the idea of having a multicultural event at Saw Mill Road last school year. Karim’s a first-generation Pakistani-American, and her children are first- and fourth-grade students at the school.
“Multicultural Night was like my brainchild,” she told the Herald, “and really near and dear to my heart. I really wanted to hold this event at the school, so I planned it last year so that all students in our school could feel recognized and welcome and included — which is actually a big model for the school district as a whole.”
Jeffrey Rosof, the school’s principal, and Daniel Madden, the assistant principal, were very receptive to Karim’s idea to put together a Multicultural Night at Saw Mill Road. At the beginning of the school year, Rosof said that all students at the school listened to a reading of the book “All Are Welcome” by Alexandra Penfold, in which readers follow a diverse group of schoolchildren as they learn, eat and play side-by-side in a world where “all are welcome.”
“Myself and Mr. Madden, and all the faculty and staff, we definitely try to promote an ‘all are welcome’ energy and vibe to Saw Mill Road, to our students but also the larger community,” Rosof said. “It’s just about, you know, regardless of where you come from, you’re welcome here. I think that’s such an important message.”
During registration, Karim said families responded if they are participating and with what country they’d like to represent. Karim then paired groups of people together and helped them coordinate, so if 20 individuals said they’re representing Italy, they would all man a table together, representing their culture. Families could have represented not only their countries, but also their heritage tied to a religion, like Jewish heritage or Islamic heritage, Karim said.
Around Saw Mill Road’s cafeteria, roughly 20 different regions were represented this year, and more than 200 people attended. Families volunteering to represent their culture at a table were encouraged to bring nut-free food, artifacts and other things to demonstrate their national origins.
New York, the United States — and even the Saw Mill Road community — is like a melting pot, Karim said. “So Multicultural Night is just a night to celebrate that diversity, but also to strengthen the sense of community,” she said. “In today’s times, it’s just nice to bring everyone together and for all the kids to feel included.”
As families explored the event space, sampling different foods and learning about different cultures, students received miniature “passports” that got stamped as they traveled around. After the dinner and traveling portion of the evening ended, the presentation portion began, where families showed off cultural music or dances, or explained a sideshow, demonstrating their heritage. In addition, many families and students dressed in culturally appropriate clothing, as a complement to the presentation.
At Saw Mill Road, acceptance and understanding are key messages conveyed to students, Rosof said, but Multicultural Night really brings the family angle into the school community.
“They really bring it very vibrantly,” he said, “with the dress and the food, the music and the presentation — it really brings to light what people’s diversity and culture means. What we often say is our strength is our diversity. There is really so much that our families are proud of, so many traditions that they bring with them, and that’s so important that everybody, regardless of where they’re from, feels like they’re honored.”
Even though it’s only in its second year, the event has received a warm reception at Saw Mill Road and in the North Bellmore School District as a whole, Karim said.
“My kids have been looking forward to it since last year, asking when is it again?” she said. “It really highlights everything that makes each place and each person unique. While we are different, there is so much that unites us as well. I think that’s really important in the school — that each child feels recognized and included, but they also feel like they’re welcome, no matter what.”
