The Alabama Cooperative Extension System's Urban Affairs and New Nontraditional Programs spearheaded a cultural diversity program for the personnel of the Child Nutrition Program of Huntsville City Schools on Friday, August 3, 2001. This seminar-workshop was held at the Huntsville High School auditorium.
The seminar started early in the morning with greetings and words of welcome from the Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools Dr. Ann Ray Moore and Ms. Jan Harris, principal of Huntsville High School. A brief statement followed the greetings that outlined the purpose of the seminar-workshop by Mrs. Carol Wheelock, director of the Child Nutrition Program. Certificates and awards were also presented to the staff in recognition for their contributions to the nutrition program during the year.
Prior to the presentations of the seminar speakers, Dr. Dony Gapasin, Extension community resource development (CRD) specialist, introduced the activities that were presented as part of the seminar-workshop-training program. The first resource speaker was Extension CRD Specialist Dr. Willie Larkin from Auburn University who showed several slides during his discussion on the topic Valuing Diversity. Forty minutes thereafter, Extension Animal Scientist Dr. Julio Correa from Alabama A&M University discussed Hispanics/Latinos in the USA Today. His presentation included the latest census of immigrants from South and Central America and other Spanish-speaking countries who are now residing in the USA and the implications to socioeconomic life in America. The next speaker, Mrs. Maria Taylor, formerly from Peru and a logistic management specialist of the Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, presented Basic Conversational Spanish.
A multicultural program followed featuring folk dances from Panama, Peru, Spain, Philippines, and Scotland, a slide show of the Philippines, and a Scottish bagpipe and snare drum composition. In addition, the Hawaiian Fun Dance Troupe of Huntsville presented several dance numbers of the Hawaiian hula-Blue Hawaii, Poi Balls and the Tahitian Bora-Bora, along with dazzling costume displays from Vietnam, African countries, Panama, Peru, Scotland and the Philippines. The audience also joined in singing It's a Small World and America the Beautiful. To round off the activities, there were exhibits of arts and crafts and posters from Indonesia, St. Lucia, Philippines, Peru and African countries in the auditorium lobby of the Huntsville High School.