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Community Invited To Participate
On March 28, the RCHS Office of Community Schools and RCHS Multicultural Multicultural Student Union (MCSUN) will host the first ever Multicultural Festival at Rockbridge County High School. The festival will start at 5 p.m. and is open to the community.
Jay Rodriguez, RCHS Community Schools coordinator for Rockbridge County Public Schools and MCSUN leadership are helping to plan this event In this new grant position as Community Schools coordinator, Rodriguez is trying to make positive change in the school and community through improving family engagement, school attendance, partnering with local businesses and organizations, and creating and supporting programs to eliminate barriers to good school attendance.
“The idea to host this event came as a collaboration with MCSUN, a club here in the school, [where] students from all cultures meet every Friday to talk about things relevant to their diverse backgrounds,” said Rodriguez. “We want to engage our community and families and also showcase the diversity of our school.”
At the festival, the cultures of many countries will be represented. Chinese, South Indian Vietnamese, African American, Appalachian, and Jamaican are a few of the cultures that will be featured in the festival.
Free food, music and entertainment will be offered to the community. In this, Rodriguez is supporting local businesses.
“We are trying to support local businesses as well, so we are getting food from Golden Garden and Muchacho Alegre, and we are also supporting local artists,” said Rodriguez.
RCHS senior Malia Fitz is one of the leaders of the Multicultural Student Union and is playing a large role in the planning of this festival.
“The idea for a multicultural festival stemmed from the Multicultural Student Union Holiday Event. In the past, the event was just club members getting together to celebrate each other’s cultures,” said Fitz.
“Then Mr. Rodriguez and Community Schools offered to help elevate the event.”
As Fitz said, this has “been a long planning process.”
“It proved to be pretty difficult at times in terms of communication,” said Fitz. “But as the president of this club, I could not be any more proud of what we have created.”
Fitz hopes to leave a positive impact on the RCHS community with the Multicultural Festival by giving a safe space for students of color.
“I want people to not be afraid of making change, even if it ruffles a few feathers,” said Fitz.
Rodriguez wants the community to be involved with the festival.
“We are definitely still looking for volunteers from the community,” said Rodriguez. “If they want to participate, they just need to let me know. It is going to be an exciting night.”
Anyone interested in volunteering or who has any questions can contact Rodriguez at [email protected].
