Rick Hansen PS inaugurates first Cultural Day with wheelchair basketball

March 5, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner

Rick Hansen Public School held their first ever Cultural Day last week with great fanfare.

The school had 323 respondents and over 100 families sign up to stop by the event on Thursday night.

“It was an absolutely amazing event. As a newer school, we’re continuing to build up parental and community involvement and this was one of those culminating evenings. It was amazing,” said principal Steve Gardner.

“I was speaking to a number of parents who commented on all the flags that were created to represent the cultures and for a school of our size the ability to see the number of nationalities was amazing. That was a big talking point among parents.”

The event had eight different workshops that you could sign up for and the grade eight’s put on displays each representing a country. In all, the class had 20 countries represented out of 24 students.

There was also a wheelchair basketball demonstration where students could sign up to learn about the sport and also give it a try.

“I think everybody thinks Aurora is not a diverse community, but it is really becoming that and I think what we have to do is start to build awareness in all of us that different things go on in different people’s houses and we need to appreciated that, understand it and celebrate it,” said music teacher and organizer Ingrid Legros. “That is what this was about tonight.”

As the night came to an end, Legros said she was amazed by how many people came out to the first event of this kind.

“Everybody that was leaving said they couldn’t wait until the next one. They had so much fun, they thought it was great and learned a ton.”
Along with the workshops, participants had a ‘passport’ to take along with them on events, where they got to experience different cultures, food, activities and more.

Principal Gardner said the event proved itself to be a great learning experience for the students and a good way for families to meet and bond.
“I think the students will be taking just a whole notion of strength through diversity, in terms of seeing similarities in our differences,” he said. “I think the other part is just bringing family into the school and being part of the school.”