Parents, students enjoy the show at Anna McCrea (18 photos)

A variety of performers entertained children and adults at the Anna McCrea Multicultural Celebration held at the east end school last week. 

The school was ideal for such an event, said Steve Bell, Anna McCrea Public School principal.

"Because we're situated close to Algoma University we have a lot of students who are children of the diverse faculty and staff there," Bell told SooToday.

"Sault Ste. Marie has a diverse population and a lot of people don't realize how diverse, but this school is a really good example of that, so we wanted to celebrate that."

"We sent out a survey to the school community and asked them what their cultural background is and we got a list back of about 20 different cultures," said Becky Peake, an Anna McCrea parent volunteer, Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) member and event organizer.

The school's community includes students and parents of Latin American, Chinese, French, Scottish, English, German, Ukrainian, Italian, Irish, Norwegian, Finnish, Japanese, Croatian and Taiwanese backgrounds (to name a few).

"It was at a PIC meeting where the idea came up about a multicultural event to celebrate our school community's diversity and the community as a whole," said Jill Thatcher, a parent volunteer and PIC member.

Performers included bonnie lassies from the MacLeod Highland Dance Studio, Francois the African spear dancer, Evolution Dance and the O'Shraves (traditional Irish and Scottish musicians).

The event was held in partnership with Algoma University, the Sault Ste. Marie and Area Local Immigration Partnership, Sault Community Career Centre and was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education through its Parents Reaching Out (PRO) program.

Food from the Sault's increasingly diverse restaurant scene was available for purchase.

Arts and craft vendors had handcrafted items from Africa, henna tattooing, knitting, sewing and beading, wooden crafts and photography for sale.

Some of the arts and crafts originated from far-off lands, while others were home-grown Canadian.

Bell praised the Anna McCrea parent community for getting the ball rolling in organizing the event.

"We're very fortunate here at Anna McCrea because we have a lot of very dedicated parent volunteers who always go the extra mile, the number of hours they put in on behalf of the kids is something I'm really proud of."

Admission to the event was free.