International Day at Prattville YMCA celebrates culture, food, heritage

Malia Riggs

Elmore Autauga News

Today students from Daniel Pratt Elementary, Billingsley School and Pine Level Elementary celebrated over 30 different cultures, foods, heritage, song and dance as well as languages that encompass a global community right here in Autauga County.

The Prattville YMCA hosted over 1500 Autauga County elementary level students for an international day celebration where they visited various booths representing different countries around the globe. Students were even given a passport where they would receive stamps after “landing” and visiting that country and learning about their culture.

Students were bouncing with energy and had wide smiles as they approached booths with awe at the different traditional clothing, currency and other cultural artifacts that were displayed Friday morning. Providing a brief look into a culture thousands of miles and oceans away.

“Our students are traveling the globe today, we have over 30 countries represented. We have over 25 languages spoken within our district. The beauty of this is that some of these students will never have the opportunity to leave Autauga Count.  So, this is a chance for them to jet set the globe in one day, in their own community,” Autauga County Schools Communication Coordinator Rebecca Thomas said.

Thomas said that the different languages spoken within Autauga County comes in part from Maxwell’s International Officer School where many students within ACS have parents that attend. 

“Students from international families bring so much culture and heritage, and just a wealth of resources and knowledge that our students from Autauga County can learn from,” Thomas said.

This international day event started at Daniel Pratt Elementary. However, this is the first year that the event was expanded to the district. The event is put on mainly by volunteers, Thomas confirmed.

“This is a passionate group of volunteers. We do have some employee oversight, but for the most part, these are all volunteers that hail from different countries, and want to make sure their culture is shared with others,” Thomas said.