Hello Washington County! February is Black History Month, and to celebrate, the West Bend High Schools’ Multi-Cultural Club is hosting a program at the schools’ Silver Lining Performing Arts Center Auditorium on Friday, February 24th at 6:30 p.m. The program is free and open to the public.
Sa’maia is a West Bend West High School senior and Leah is one of the school’s band directors as well as an advisor to the Multi-Cultural Club.
Fuzz Martin 0:08
Hello, Washington County! Thank you for listening to Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. On this show I feature people, organizations and events that have a positive impact on our lives here in Washington County, Wisconsin. I love hosting the show because I get to meet so many different people and learn about programs and organizations that I might not have otherwise heard about, and that the social media algorithms don’t always bring to the top of our feeds.
Fuzz Martin 0:37
February, as you should know is Black History Month. I’m going to give you a little history on Black History Month in 1915, Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moreland created an organization, which is known today as the Association for the Study of African American life and history in order to celebrate and make people aware of achievements by black Americans, and other people of African descent. In 1926, the association started to what was then called Negro History Week in order to quote organize local celebrations establish history, clubs and host performances and lectures. They chose the second week in February because both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays were in the second week of February, during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That week began to expand to the whole month of February. Then in 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized February as Black History Month and it’s been officially recognized by every president ever since 1976. I’ve sourced some of those facts from the History Channel and from the NAACP, and I will link to those articles in the show notes of this episode. In honor of Black History Month, and today, Tuesday, February 14, as I released this episode, is actually Frederick Douglass birthday.
Fuzz Martin 2:01
I am speaking with West Bend high school seniors Sa’maia Evans, and West Bend band director and multicultural club advisor Leah Duckert-Kroll, the West Bend high schools as depository multicultural Club is hosting a program at the silver lining Art Center Auditorium on Friday, February 24, at 6:30pm It’s free and open to the public, and you should attend. And with that, here are 15 minutes on the Multicultural Club’s Black History Month celebration, with Sa’maia Evans and Leah Duckert-Kroll on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Fuzz Martin 2:45
Sa’maia and Leah, thank you for joining me today. So I’ll start with you. What grade are you in? First of all, and are you a Spartan or a son?
Sa’maia Evans 2:53
Um, I am a senior, so 12th grade and I’m a Spartan?
Fuzz Martin 2:57
And so you have big plans coming up after you graduate?
Sa’maia Evans 3:01
Just going to college?
Fuzz Martin 3:02
Sweet. When did you get involved with the multicultural club at West Bend west?
Sa’maia Evans 3:07
It was my freshman year, my sister had informed me about it. So okay,
Fuzz Martin 3:11
and what do you enjoy most about the Multi-cultural Club?
Sa’maia Evans 3:16
Mainly, it’s just like a more diverse group of people than you know what you see in the hallways and classrooms. So it’s a good opportunity to be able to socialize with different people and talk about different things, you know, that we can discuss outside of our typical environment?
Fuzz Martin 3:31
Yeah. So gives you an opportunity to share experiences or be with people who understand and be a part of a more diverse culture than the typical school they said. Yeah. And, Leah, what is your role at the Western High School?
Leah Duckert-Kroll 3:47
I’m one of the high school band directors.
Fuzz Martin 3:49
Can you give me some more background on the Multicultural Club? How like, how long has it been around those kind of things?
Leah Duckert-Kroll 3:54
Sure. It started in the fall of 2017. Our student body was rapidly growing in diversity. And we saw a need to have something to meet the needs of all of our students.
Fuzz Martin 4:09
What kind of activities do the students in the Multicultural Club participant,
Leah Duckert-Kroll 4:14
They’ve done a lot actually. They’ve done field trips to theatrical performances. They do fundraising drives, they do community partnerships. As an example, they have a community partnership with the good folks at Cedar Community. They read to elementary students, which is fun for both kids like both the older kids and the younger kids. They love it. They sponsor our Black History Month celebration. And last year, we did a really cool thing called days for girls, which was a collection drive for feminine hygiene products for like sustainable menstrual health.
Fuzz Martin 4:46
Right? Yeah. So February is Black History Month and the multicultural club has a program planned for Friday, February 24 at the silver lining Art Center auditorium at the high school. So Maya, what can people expect at the black History Month program.
Sa’maia Evans 5:01
Well, we usually like to incorporate professional and entertainment with a student involvement. So professionally, we’re having an African Dance Company aleafia Drum stance collective, they’re performing for 45 minutes. And usually you have to pay to see them perform. But with the program, it’s nice people can just come out and see, experienced that, especially in spent men, there will also be a few high school students who are reciting things like speeches and poems. And then afterwards, we end with some light refreshments, you know, snacks and drinks afterwards.
Fuzz Martin 5:32
How many years has this program been going on the Black History Month program at the school,
Leah Duckert-Kroll 5:36
the Black History Month Program has been going on for years, we had to take two years off during the whole COVID thing. Oh, sure. Yeah, if COVID wasn’t a thing we would have been in our sixth year. Okay. As it is we’re in your four.
Fuzz Martin 5:47
Now. Is the event itself open to the public? Or is it’s for students or Yeah, it
Leah Duckert-Kroll 5:51
sure is open to the public. And we really encourage everyone to come on in how much does it cost to get into the event? Totally free, totally free. We want this to be open and available and accessible to everyone.
Fuzz Martin 6:02
Now, even though it is free, it is a fundraising event. Right?
Leah Duckert-Kroll 6:05
Yeah. Like we’ll definitely have things like a 50/50 raffle or, you know, just open fun fundraising or you know, whatever. We’ll definitely have that. So it does go back to the Multicultural Club.
Fuzz Martin 6:18
Okay, very good. And the Multicultural Club itself isn’t funded by the schools.
Leah Duckert-Kroll 6:22
No, we’re not subsidized by the school at all. So things like the Black History Month celebration, the next year’s production will be paid for by this year’s production. Gotcha.
Fuzz Martin 6:32
Yeah. Okay. And that’s how you afford to have the performers come in. That’s right. What was the name of the group? Again, that’s performing
Sa’maia Evans 6:39
aleafia Drums dance collective?
Fuzz Martin 6:41
Okay. Do you? So that’s from Milwaukee? Hertz? Yes. Okay, awesome. So my, how’s the Multicultural Club helped you in your high school career?
Sa’maia Evans 6:49
um, sort of how I talked about earlier, it’s provides a space for me, you know, throughout high school for years, sometimes since longer than just four years. But yeah, it’s given me a good community of besides what’s already provided, I’ve, you know, made a lot of friends and experienced a lot of cool things like reading with elementary schools or the CTO community, you know, reaching out with their group as well. So a lot, uh, I don’t know, networking within like the community as well. How can students
Fuzz Martin 7:19
become more involved with that Multicultural Club?
Sa’maia Evans 7:22
I think Sa’maia you might know that one a little bit more, would you?
Fuzz Martin 7:25
Yeah. So if somebody wanted to, yeah, a student coming into West Bend, you know, they want to get involved. How do they become aware of it? How do they join?
Sa’maia Evans 7:33
Well, once they do become aware of it, I mean, we have like, stuff at like freshman orientation. And that’s technically what it’s called. But like, stuff like that, or I know, there’s like posters and stuff and on the school website, but after that, some people I know, come and talk to you, Miss Decker. And then they also can reach out to either her or the advisor assignment, or, you know, talk to your friends. And usually we meet during resource so all you have to do is sign up for Flexi on Wednesdays, not everyone’s day, but someone’s day, so
Fuzz Martin 8:05
So if you go to school there, you probably you’ll probably find out about that threw all the stuff up and around, right? Yeah.
Leah Duckert-Kroll 8:12
And it’s in our co curricular handbook. Okay. Yeah. Great.
Fuzz Martin 8:15
Well, Samaya Good luck with the rest of your senior year and good luck at college. Thank you. And, of course, good luck with the the Black History Month Program, which is happening again on Friday, February 24. What was the time again on that event? I think it’s 636 30. Okay, very good. Well, I think it’s really cool what you guys are doing, and I think it’s important in our community. And Leah, thank you for joining me. And thank you both for coming in.
Leah Duckert-Kroll 8:38
Thank you so much.
Fuzz Martin 8:41
Thank you again to Sa’maia Evans and Leah Duckert-Kroll from the West Bend High School’s Multicultural Club for joining me on today’s episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. Again, their program takes place at the high schools Silver Lining Arts Center Auditorium on Friday, February 24. Starting at 6:30pm. It’s completely free and open to the public. Go check it out. And thank you again for checking out Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. It’s always a pleasure to have you listen to my show. I appreciate it. I have a bunch of great guests coming up for the show next week. Jess Wildes, and Jay Shambeau. Join me to talk about the upcoming downtown Main Street renovations here in West Bend. It’ll be a good and informative episode. If you have an idea for who I should feature on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz, shoot me an email. It’s [email protected] that is fifteen spelled out with fuzz @gmail.com. You can find all of the back episodes of this show on your favorite podcast player. Click on the Follow button while you’re in the podcast player to get notified of when new episodes of this show come out. You could also see them all at fifteenwithfuzz.com. That’ll do it for today’s show. Thanks again and I’ll talk to you next Tuesday. Right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz
