by Emmy Kirkham
At the International Dinner, over forty New Prairie students prepared dishes to represent various countries and cultures.
The dinner had a large turnout of parents, students, and teachers, with delicious food for everyone to try. It was a success because of the variety of cultures and the hard work the world language department put in.
“The point is to explore the different cultures and the world language department did a good job of ensuring a variety,” stated senior Maleny Mireles.
Students choose a country of their liking and make a tradition dish from that country. Along with the dish, they are also required to make a poster listing various facts about their country.
A few of the dishes were macaroons from France, mole from Mexico, and cheese pie from Sweden.
“My favorite part of the dinner was going around to all the different tables and being able to experience such a variety of different cultures,” said junior Julia Jones.
Mireles encouraged students to make a dish at least once, so they can experience the different cultures represented and compare their dish to others. Many students continue to prepare dishes for the dinner or just attend after their first year because of the annual success.
“I’ve always wanted to travel the world and the dinner is like a sneak peek,” said Mireles. “I liked trying different foods I would normally pass on.”
Along with the dinner, International Honor Society inductions also took place. Seventeen students were inducted into Spanish Honor Society and two were inducted into French Honor Society, for a total of nineteen new members.
These students included Madalyne Andrysiak, Amira Bernard, Lillian Dingman, Jasmine Elliott, Hillary Hodum, Kylee Hughes, Juliana Kroll, Jacob Meyers, Julianne Okrzesik, Daniel Paul, Sydney Rieck, Wendy Ruiz Flores, Eira Schmidt, Emma Schmidt, Marissa Schultz, Dimitri Scofield, Brianne Simmons, Sydney Varnak, Brooklinn Bumgardner, and Grace Jones.
Students need to complete fifteen service hours of community service in order to receive cords to wear at graduation. International Honor Society is also a resume and application builder when applying for jobs and college.
“This organization is a great way to learn about culture, spread an awareness of culture to the community, and give back to the community through service,” said Amanda Davis, International Honor Society sponsor.
Davis explained that it is important that students interested in joining plan to use foreign language outside of high school, have a passion for language, and plan to take a minimum of 3 years of foreign language.
Students should not be hesitant to join because of the idea of speaking different languages. They occasionally incorporate the traditions, but their main focus is to serve the community and school.
“We mostly make sure our chapters include providing fun for others and ourselves,” said Mireles.
Mireles explained how International Honor Society gives its members an opportunity to share each other’s knowledge of the languages they’ve learned and work together to provide fun activities for the school.