“A Celebration of Family, community and culture.” According to the official Kwanzaa website, that is what the holiday is about.

Shippensburg University’s Multicultural Student Affairs (MSA) brought Kwanzaa to the campus to celebrate and educate students about the holiday.

Early Saturday morning, there were workshops as part of a youth summit for students in grades nine through 12 from Harrisburg, the Greater Cumberland Valley and Philadelphia. Terrell Lyerly, a junior at SU, hosted two workshops with his friend Marcus Watkins; one called “Dream Chasers” and the other about men showing emotions.

It showed students “how to be ambitious and know where you want to go in life.” All workshops were centered around the phrase “Hate Won’t Win.”

Lyerly said there were around 60 young students in attendance and they would be given a celebration after the workshops.

In the Ceddia Union Building’s Multipurpose Room (CUB MPR), the stage had a reggae band playing music, and on the floor there were tables with green and red plastic wrap, dinner provided by MSA and Chartwells, cotton candy, deep fried Oreo’s and a caricature artist.

When the band took a break, three men on stilts came out and danced to music. They stood more than 8 feet tall and wore colorful clothes. They held out their hands to dance with people, which made some laugh and caused them to take pictures. The music could be heard throughout the CUB.

Josh Smith, a fifth-year student at Shippensburg, is studying sociology with a minor in Spanish and this was his third time coming to the celebration.

“Kwanzaa is all about unity and around the Christmas time,” Smith said.

Smith was wearing a button up blue and white plaid shirt with a blue and green bowtie. He added that color is important.

He talked about students receiving a “Kente,” which Taylor Canty, the secretary of MSA, explained.

“A Kente is a colorful sash/cloth, which represents the completion of a major goal in one’s life and each color means something different. One might receive this for a high school or college graduation.” Canty said that MSA is all about “spreading cultural awareness and diversity.”

Diane Jefferson, MSA’s adviser, went into detail about the organizations intentions.

“We train students to go out and make the world more culturally accepting and diverse. All of our workshops on campus are run by Shippensburg students and the kids just love being on a college campus,” Jefferson said.

She added that students all desire a culture and they want to provide the understanding.

“We also promote college advancement for the younger kids should they choose it.”

Jefferson said that having just completed a Latino Explosion, celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, they plan on reaching out to the Asian-American community shortly.

When asked how many events MSA hosts in a given school year, Jefferson chuckled and said, “I think 20 is too few.” She said that it is non-stop with things ranging from homecoming to graduation.

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