Our school has a large range of different students, all unique with their own personality, style, religion and opinions. The culture fair circles around art, food, social institutions and religions around the world.

“The purpose of it is to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and backgrounds, to empower young leaders of color and to increase awareness and appreciation of students’ unique identities. So, the purpose of it is basically cultural appreciation and celebration, learning about others’ backgrounds and really just learn to celebrate that instead of being unaware of why we’re all uniquely different. Last year we really saw that with the culture fair, kids had such a sweet spirit of celebrating one another,” said teacher sponsor Josie El.

This Friday, the culture fair will take place in the main gym.

“We’re doing it different this year. This year, the bell schedule is actually going to change completely. The class periods are going to be about an hour long because they’re going to send half of the class at once, then the other half of the class. A through K students will come at the first half of the class, then L through Z will come after them. That’s mostly because of Covid so that we only have about 350 kids at a time. Second period is going to be freshman, third period is going to be sophomores, fourth period is going to be seniors and sixth period is going to be juniors,” said El.

Last year, things were quite crowded in the hall, with a set schedule and a larger space to work with. This year, everything became a lot more organized. El and the student group haven’t been doing the culture fair for long, but plan to continue it.

“We just started last spring at the very end of the year, so this is only our second year doing it, and it’s a really quick turnaround because we’re doing it in the fall instead of the spring,” said El.

A lot of time and effort is put into making the fair possible. The group takes a long time to make each project special, enlightening and engaging for every student. Much thought was put into the event before they even began to design posters; discussions on the project even began before school actually started this year.

“We had a brainstorm session over the summer because it’s such a big event, and we did a fundraiser and our club raised over 10,000 dollars for this event,” said El.

Students can expect music, performances and many other things to enhance the experience for all students in attendance. While the fair is meant to be fun and engaging for students, the event’s purpose is to enlighten BHS’ students and broaden their horizons to the diversity around them.

“One of our character traits is acceptance, to recognize and show appreciation for the differences in others. Once we can appreciate and recognize differences in others, we can actually learn to celebrate them; we begin to understand them. We grow from maybe judging others for differences or even worse, making fun of others for differences, and we grow to understand that the differences in others is what makes this world so beautiful,” said El.

The culture fair will have many different booths. It is important to accept all cultures around our world; Visit the culture fair and see the world from new perspectives.