River View’s culture club organizes spirit week
WARSAW – The Rock Your World (Cultures) Club at River View High School spent the week of March 6-10 celebrating difference and other cultures.
“We decided to do a spirit week to raise awareness,” said junior Hannah Poorman.
Monday was Day of Zero Discrimination, Tuesday was Day of Happiness, Wednesday was World Water Day, Thursday was Harmony Day – Everyone Belongs, and Friday was wear RV gear day.
“It’s important to expose kids to other cultures and experiences because we don’t have much diversity here,” said sophomore Bailey Hettinger.
Junior Hannah Frank also said it was a great way to spread positivity around the school.
“On Tuesday we got to play music between classes that was just happy and energetic,” said sophomore Remi Mitchell.
The club celebrated its hard work in planning the week with an ice cream party. On Friday they also treated the enrichment period with the most students wearing River View gear to an ice cream party during A2 afternoon club time in their enrichment classroom.
“We ended up having two with 100 percent participation today (Friday),” said Karri Millward Harstine, one of the advisors of the club. “We had to go out and get more ice cream because we weren’t expecting to have a tie.”
Four of the school’s five foreign exchange students got to enjoy the ice cream celebration on Friday.
“It’s so nice that they get to do stuff like this,” said Francesca Masala, who is from Italy. “School is just school (in Italy).”
El Nordentoft, who is visiting from Denmark, agreed with Masala.
“We don’t have spirit weeks so it was nice to get to do something like we see in the American movies,” she said. “We don’t have time for fun in school.”
Antonio Fernandez said high school in his home country of Spain is much more formal than it is here in America.
Christin Geissler, who is here from Germany, said she decided to study overseas to experience American culture.
Masala also said it’s a great way to improve your English.
“To get a good job you need to know English,” she said.
Amanda Meiser helps Harstine with the Rock Your World (Cultures) Club and said the group was formed to help welcome foreign exchange students and stress the importance of diversity, acceptance and learning about other cultures.
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