The Ardsley Multicultural, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the AHS Building Bridges club recently organized the Community Dinner, an event intended to unify the Ardsley community. For this event, community members were assigned to go to dinners at different houses. Over 80 community members, students, teachers and administrators participated. There were 10 different dinners hosted and, after dinner, all participants convened at the firehouse for dessert and a group discussion about building community in Ardsley. In addition, a carload of packaged and canned goods was collected and donated to Feeding Westchester, our local food bank.
The conversations during dinner and dessert were a wonderful way to join together and talk about local issues that have a lasting impact on the people in the community. Ananya Sistla, AHS junior and member of Building Bridges, attended the dinner and left with meaningful takeaways from her conversations with fellow Ardsley residents. She referred to social media as a prominent driver of tension in Ardsley, including Facebook groups. She suggests we need a formal way to address problems in the form of town meetings or more community dinners. A lot of problems are discussed on social media platforms in groups like Ardsley Moms & Dads on Facebook. “It actually creates more tension than unity,’’ says Ananya.There are wavering interpretations of posts on social media, along with underlying emotions behind problems implicitly mentioned. It is always more productive to speak face-to-face to address issues, which was the purpose of this community-based event.
Ardsley takes community unity seriously through the investment in events like Ardsley Day and Ardsley Cares Day. Ananya noted that the Ardsley community takes pride in these events since they help form stronger connections between the people within Ardsley. Additionally, there are many organizations in Ardsley like the Ardsley Panthers Booster Club and AFSA. with high student participation. In the future, Ananya hopes that more voices are heard in these organizations and events like the Community Dinner.
This dinner was a great first step at making Ardsley more accepting of other cultures and backgrounds. Many of the houses that hosted the dinners came from a variety of cultures, some including of Middle-Eastern origin and Pakistani background. Hopefully, this event positively impacted community members’ perceptions of other cultures. With interactive activities, it is easier to bring awareness to the greater issues at hand. The Community Dinner is part of the solution to bring forward a unified and more inclusive community at AHS. The Community Dinner helps to create a more culturally-aware high school by shifting the conversation to minorities. The dinner also had an impact on students’ perceptions of other people’s cultures. When Ms.Weinrib, an AHS social studies teacher and the advisor of Building Bridges, was asked how Building Bridges was working towards accepting cultures as a community at AHS, she enthusiastically responded that Building Bridges would like to participate in school-wide movements for unity.
The Community Dinner intended to encourage unity among community members. Other Ardsley clubs have proposed similar ideas. Clubs like the Asian Student Union have proposed Diversity Week, a way to encourage the acceptance and celebration of cultures. Students would be able to bring in food from different cultures, but administration approval is still required for this event.
Currently, Building Bridges is working on an immigration event that compiles stories of immigrants working or living in Ardsley. This event aims to provide students with a better understanding of how immigrants live in America and what their transition into the country has been like. As Ms.Weinrib says, “you can’t paint immigrants with one brush.” Stories of immigrants often have great depth and are multifaceted. Hopefully, there will be an event to showcase peoples’ stories. Although Ardsley is a small, affluent community, we open our doors to the growing immigrant population with open arms.
In current controversies like the sighting of a man wearing swastikas in Sunshine Bagels, our community has tried to combat acts of hate through the local “hate has no home” movement. Hate crimes like these help us realize the importance of our interconnectedness. Ms. Weinrib notes that, “If there is a community where members of the community feels connected then acts of hate are less likely to come about became there are repercussions.”