Skip to content

St. Agnes School celebrates Heritage Day with culturally diverse students and families

St. Agnes School celebrated Heritage Day with their culturally diverse students and families.

St. Agnes School celebrated Heritage Day with their culturally diverse students and families on Jan. 26 from 4 to 6 p.m.

“I’ve always wanted to do something like this to showcase and celebrate all the diversity and culture that we have at the school; it’s an intimidating task,” said Justin Clewis, principal of St. Agnes School.

“We have invited all parents to come and learn with us,” said St. Agnes School community council member Windell Seargent. “Once every month, we would encourage parents to meet with us to help the teachers and the school in any way possible.”

Kevin and Tam Heuyen are from Vietnam and newcomers to Canada. They were happy to share their culture with the community and to enjoy the day with their family.

Ololade Kassim and her family are from Nigeria. She came to the event to showcase a Nigerian dish made of Jollof rice with grilled chicken.  

“We’re representing Scotland, Czechoslovakia and a little bit of Denmark and Ireland,” said Czechoslovakian Kayla Anderson & Kaiven Anderson Blaha. “We have a mix of Anderson and Blaha families from Czechoslovakia.”

Blaha says he is excited to eat all the yummy food and enjoy the dance performances, which will help people learn more about Moose Jaw and other cultures.

“We were excited to be invited by Holy Trinity Catholic School Division and St. Agnes School to join their cultural day. I think it’s going to be an enormous celebration of all the diverse and varied cultures that take part here at the school,” said Jennifer Maxfield, Moose Jaw Multicultural Council and SWIS worker.

“We challenged our administrators to work with families to get them more incorporated into the school and St. Agnes came up with the idea of a cultural fair,”

Director of Education for Holy Trinity Catholic School Division, Ward Strueby, said, “We believe our parents are the number one educator for their children.”

The principal of St. Agnes School kicked off the event with an introductory speech highlighting all their students and their parents who came from different parts of the world.  

Vice-principal Kyle Lichtenwald led a prayer, then the main event started with dance performances from the school’s Filipino students. After the performances, everyone got busy trying out all the diverse multicultural dishes.

In this event, there were participants from the Philippines, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Moose Jaw Newcomer Welcome Centre, St. Agnes School Community Council, Nigeria, Denmark, South Africa, Ecuador, Peru, Treaty 4 Metis, Catholic Girls league, Scotland, Ireland, German, Czechoslovakia, Ukrainian, MJ Public Library and Moose Jaw Council Inc.

The event ended with lots of food and friendship among diverse cultures.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks