Each Thursday, Denisa Sabic has a “Thankful Thursday” in her seminar class where students are given the opportunity to write letters to friends, staff or family and tell them how they are thankful for them. After the sophomore LifeLab, students wrote thank you letters to business that they visited.
Sabic shares the reasoning behind the Thankful Thursdays was to connect students with one another, “We hoped that by creating this, it would help students feel part of a community. The get-togethers have helped a lot of students socialize during this time and try new things that they’ve never tried or experienced before”
It is our way of also telling our students that they matter and that we are here for them in whatever way. Celebrating them and their achievement is a way to support them.
— Denisa Sabic
Once a month, Thankful Thursday turns into a community building potluck where students from Mr. Barnett, Mrs. Leipold, and Mrs. Graber join in. For the month of November, the staff decided to take the opportunity to celebrate cultures from across the world.
On Thursday Nov. 16, the four seminar classes joined together to enjoy a Thanksgiving potluck before the holiday break.
With food from cultures in different areas of the United States as well as different countries, both the staff and students involved were welcome to bring in foods to celebrate their cultures.
Sophomore Ryan Wei took the opportunity to share his Chinese heritage through Mongolian pork. Wei shares that the dish is made of pork and garlic sauce and celebrates his parents culture and is something his family enjoys to make and share with each other.
Leipold has represented this tradition as the spokesperson and reaches out to business around the community for donations during the potlucks. For the Thanksgiving cultural celebration, The Red Apple provided pork and vegetables representing Asia, toasted bread from Raising Canes and Icon donuts. Sabic also provided burek from to represent her Bosnian culture.
Though Thursdays celebrate what students are thankful for, Sabic and the rest of the ETM (Engineering, Technology and Manufacturing) academy plan events for each day of the week that keeps students engaged and active in their schooling.
