“There is only one race: the human race,” Reverend Paul Johnson said at the most recent Diversity Club event.
Students from around the area gathered to talk about diversity. They discussed this on Sept. 28 at the Altoona Campus. They learned about people with disabilities to become more diverse people.
“We need to teach students at a young age that you shouldn’t treat people differently because of their race or their religion,” Kiersten Smith said, a two year participant of diversity club.
Diversity club has been going on in Altoona for twenty years.
“So far we’ve talked about disabilities, but the next two field trips that we have are going to be talking about different types of religions and in the last one we talk about the Holocaust,” Smith said.
“You should not treat people differently because they have a disability. You should learn how they work to get around,” Smith said while discussing their first field trip.
“Just meeting new people and learning about how to treat people the right way,” Smith said after being asked what her favorite part of diversity club was.
“We go to Washington D.C., the Holocaust Museum and the JFK Memorial. And we have fun,” Smith said.
“I would say… I’ve opened my eyes,” Smith said. “I’m looking at people now.”
“The main thing that it focuses on is bullying and to not bully. A lot of people are discriminated against and it’s basically a higher form of bullying, so I think that it’s important for junior high kids to understand and to be reinforced,” Jennyfer Wilson said. Wilson just started helping with diversity club.
“I know with the first session/workshop that we went to there were a lot of life lessons that kids could be learning about accepting others for their differences,” Wilson said.
