West Hartford’s Hall High School will hold its fourth annual ‘Do Something Week,’ and the community will participate in a variety of activities including food and clothing drives and performances.

Photo credit: Amy Melvin

Submitted by Jenny Bronson, Student Activities Coordinator, Hall High School

The week of Feb. 2-6 marks William H. Hall High School’s fourth annual “Do Something Week,” during which students and faculty participate in a multitude of events encompassing service, charitable acts and donations, and activism.

This year, musician and motivational speaker Frank Waln, a 25-year-old Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and Chicago, will present “Music is Medicine,” which addresses issues facing young people both on and off reservations. Waln and hoop dancers Sammi and Lumhe Sampson put on a unique performance that questions stereotypes and bridges cultures through music and dance.

An additional highlight of Hall’s Do Something Week is the annual Cultural Fusion assembly. Organized by the school’s Multicultural Club, Cultural Fusion is a powerful celebration of the many different ethnicities and cultures represented at Hall High School. Students perform songs, presentations, dances and other dramatic endeavors in a showcase of the school’s diversity. The assembly culminates with a student and faculty fashion show highlighting the traditional dress of countries such as Brazil, Nepal, England, India and Nigeria, among others.

This year’s Cultural Fusion event will be attended by of one of Hall High School’s first African American graduates, Gertrude (Boyer) Banks of the class of 1938. Following the assembly, Ms. Banks will attend a luncheon at Hall where she will mingle with students and share her experience as a high school student so many years ago.

Hall High School’s Do Something Week is held annually around the time of Martin Luther King Day. The week-long community service and activism event challenges us all to think about life’s most persistent and urgent question according to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “What are you doing for others?” As in years past, this year’s events include food, book and clothing drives, sandwich making for a local food shelter, hair donations to Locks of Love, and more.

The schedule of events for “Do Something Week” includes the following activities:

• Frank Waln free concert and discussion: Tuesday, Feb. 3, at Hall High School auditorium, 7 to 9 p.m. Additional concert and discussion for students at Hall High School, Wednesday Feb. 4, 8:10 to 9:30 a.m. This presentation is funded by the Ellen Jeanne Goldfarb Charitable Memorial Trust and the Connecticut Humanities Council.

• Cultural Fusion Assembly: Friday, Feb. 6, 8:56– 9:46 a.m. and 9:52 – 10:42 a.m . in Hall High School auditorium.

• Luncheon with Gertrude Banks: Friday, Feb. 6, 10:45 – 11:30 a.m. Room E131.

• Do Something Week drives/events/displays: Monday (2/2), Tuesday (2/3), Thursday (2/5) and Friday (2/6) in Hall High School cafeteria 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; Wednesday (2/4) 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.