Friday, May 16, 2025
Students, teachers and parents celebrated the return of Lawrence Road Middle School’s Multicultural Night with live music, dances and culturally influenced dishes on March 28.
Multicultural Night’s role as an annual tradition was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. This year marks its return to LRMS, allowing staff and students to show off their talents in poetry, performance and cooking for their peers.
LRMS’ Parent Teacher Student Association brought together community members from all backgrounds to contribute to Multicultural Night. PTSA Vice President Karen Johnson helped organize the event.
“I am proud of the partnership of the school administrators, the parents and the Lawrence Road Middle School PTSA team,” Johnson said. “The event was a huge success bringing together different cultures.”
Over 200 community members were in attendance, including students from other schools, according to Johnson. The PTSA also brought in Molloy University’s Mobile Clinic as a partner for the event, offering free health screenings to attendees. The hour-and-a-half-long gathering brought all types of cultural backgrounds to the stage.
Addie Blanco-Harvey is a Board of Education trustee and a parent involved with the PTSA. “I always enjoy it when we have events like this one,” she said. “I myself made white rice and Jamaican curry chicken, and everyone enjoyed it.”
As a member of the district and a parent, Blanco-Harvey sees these events as a valuable bridge between the school and the home.
“It’s important for the PTSA to have events such as this so that the parents can come into the school and see what the school looks like and meet the administrators,” she explained. “It’s important for parents to take an active role, not only in the education of their children, but also in the events that happen throughout the school year.”
Claudia Barnes is in her first year as president of the PTSA — and her daughter, Jessica Barnes, is in her first year as a student at LRMS.
“In past years, I’ve participated in Parent Teacher Student Associations,” Claudia Barnes said. “This is the first event we’ve had since I became president where we’ve had so much participation from parents and students. The camaraderie was very exciting to see.”
Claudia Barnes also performed the Jamaican national anthem, joined by members of the crowd.
Jessica Barnes, a sixth-grade student at LRMS, has been an active participant in the school’s numerous social events — Multicultural Night gave her the opportunity to show her skills as a member of the Lawrence Road Spirit Squad.
“To contribute to the Multicultural Night, I performed in several of the dances, one of which was an African dance, I participated in the fashion show, and I helped to serve the food,” Barnes said. “The Multicultural Night was a great opportunity because we got to do different dances, and the audience seemed to enjoy the dances, so that felt good.”
PTSA treasurer and former president Olga Hernandez helped bring Multicultural Night to LRMS. “I thought it was very, very important for the school dynamics to be intertwined with the community dynamics to get to know each other,” Hernandez said. “It’s very difficult to get a parental engagement, and we definitely got parental engagement by asking them to donate a cultural dish, wear their cultural attire and bring their cultural artifacts.”
Adeola Tella-Williams is the dean of academic services and director of programs at LRMS. She has been in the district for over 20 years as an educator.
“We had students that danced to Caribbean music, because we have a large Caribbean population, as well as students that dance to reggaeton or Latin music, because we also have a large Latino population,” she said. “We had students that sang traditional hymns, African American hymns, like ‘Amazing Grace’ — that was really nice.”
On the culinary side, recipes from Haiti and Latin America were featured, including curry chicken and lasagna.
After its extended absence, Multicultural Night succeeded in bringing people together again.
“Everybody was in community with one another,” Tella-Williams said.
