Creighton students volunteered Friday at the Intercultural Senior Center’s annual Day of the Dead celebration with food, music and cultural activities.
Luz Minerva Colon-Rodriguez, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, drove students to the celebration during lunchtime for an opportunity to volunteer and enjoy the event during one of its busiest times.
The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Latin American countries and around the world in other cultures and focuses on remembrance of friends and family members who have died. Creighton students were able to experience an authentic celebration, as the Intercultural Senior Center is located in the heart of South Omaha and cares for refugees from many countries in Latin America.
The celebration was an open house style, according to Rodriguez. It featured traditional cuisine, a raffle, walls of Mexican artwork created by students at Edward Babe Gomez Elementary School, Mexican dancers and musicians, an altar with pictures of family and friends who have passed and gifts for the deceased.
The annual festival is a fundraiser for the Intercultural Senior Center, according to Marie Schussman, the refugee program coordinator for the Intercultural Senior Center.
“This is our fifth year in a row putting on the event as a fundraiser for the Center as we provide a place to exercise, nutrition support and companionship to refugees in the area,” Schussman said. “Día de los Muertos is a popular Mexican holiday and we incorporate all of the elements of the holiday into this celebration including food, dancing and tradition. It is a growing event and we expect to see over 800 people here today.”
The celebration also included the blending of different cultures as the ISC has begun to care for a growing population of Burmese refugees.
Program coordinator Teresa Ayala said that every year the celebration gets better.
“We always have different music, better performers and more people coming — including over 50 refugees,” Ayala said. “We have three translators here today so that they can feel a part of this party; it’s the blending of new cultures with old traditions that makes this day so fun.”
Creighton’s Office of Multicultural Affairs will be hosting its own Día de los Muertos celebrations this week. Today, a workshop on the importance of the Day of the Dead and decoration of students’ own sugar skulls, will take place in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Harper 1109 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. The Office of Multicultural Affairs will also be hosting a Dia de los Muertos altar presentation on Friday where students will learn about the role of the altar in Day of the Dead and build their own.
During the Intercultural Senior Center’s celebration of the Day of the Dead, an altar was set up with pictures and tokens honoring the dead.