Importance of the "Unimportant"

Last Tuesday we held our “International Feast,” NYCCD’s version of Thanksgiving. The event took a lot of preparation and to be honest, as I microwaved 300 chicken nuggets, I wondered if it was worth our while. But as everyone arrived for the feast I became sure that it was. Many parents at our school live in rough conditions, work two jobs, and have young babies. It is often difficult, therefore, to get in touch with them and even harder to get them to come to the school. Yet in spite of all this, more than half of the parents filed in that day. Most proudly carried a contribution, a tray of food from their culture ranging from Moroccan couscous to Chinese chicken dumplings. As the children sang festive songs and everyone feasted on the International assortment, I thought about how important the seemingly unimportant is. We spend a lot of time here organizing parties, toy drives, etc., but I now believe this is almost as important as the time we spend orchestrating speech and physical therapy. Making the families feel some allegiance to NYCCD and excitement about their children’s progress is incredibly valuable.