Local kids shown an int'l Easter

Drew Elementary School's exuberant first grade burst into the High Rise North rooftop lounge on Friday afternoon to participate in Phi Sigma Pi's major spring community service project, "Easter Around the World." In addition to the traditional activities of egg coloring and hunting, the project's primary goal was to introduce the 24 children to many different countries and cultures. To this end, the co-ed service fraternity set up tables displaying maps, flags, pictures, clothes, dolls, medicine, money and many other souveniers from Borneo, East Asia, Europe, India, Russia and South America. After an egg coloring session, fraternity tour guides led small groups of the first graders to each table, where they played with the displays and learned about the cultures. Just as everyone's focus began to wane, service chairperson College sophomore Asha Bhatiani called for quiet and, with the help of parents and first grade teacher, Karel Kilimnick, got the children to sit in a circle. The fraternity members quickly passed out paper bags and sent the ecstatic class out hunting for Easter eggs. After all the eggs had been found, the children reassembled, received a little candy for their trouble, thanked Phi Sigma Pi and filed onto the elvevators. The first graders' sea of smiles revealed that the field trip had been a definite sucess. "This is a wonderful thing for the kids," remarked Kilimnick. "Our class is very diverse and this event similarly celebrates many different cultures. Other teachers are clamoring to get trips like this." Fraternity members agreed that the event had gone well. College junior Andrea Chen said, "I think they really enjoyed being exposed to things different than American culture." "However, this event wasn't just about teaching," she said. "They had the opportunity to get out of the classroom and had a lot of fun. So did we."