Login

Gallup Sun

Tuesday, Mar 19th

Last update10:02:09 PM GMT

You are here: News Sun News Paying homage to Gallup’s north side

Paying homage to Gallup’s north side

E-mail Print PDF

‘NorthFest’ celebrates an old neighborhood’s roots

Bringing the cultures of the north side community together, UNM-G’s North Campus in collaboration with gallupARTS, Art123 Gallery, ATD Fourth World, and New Mexico Aging & Long-Term Services Department, held “NorthFest” Sept. 15.

The celebration was held at the UNM-G North Campus, 425 North St., with art, language, food, music and storytelling. NorthFest invited students of the newly built Del Norte Elementary school to participate in the festivities.

Laura Jijon, director of the North Campus, says the north side often gets a bad rap, and people tend to think of it as the wayward side of town. Jijon wanted to show people that a lot of good things go on here and hopes this event becomes an annual thing, plus she said a happy accident was that Del Norte received an “A” grade and was celebrating their good work and decided to put the two together.

“This is the first year and we wanted to do something with our students ... we decided to do this by celebrating language, arts, storytelling and literacy,” she said. “Everything we’re doing here is way to tell a story, and that’s one reason. The second reason is that we wanted to celebrate the north side. We got support for this from City Councilor Linda Garcia, who gave us $3,000 out of her discretionary fund, which went to purchasing the materials for this event.”

Having the students of the newly minted Del Norte Elementary went hand in hand.

Del Norte Elementary was the merging of two schools, Juan de Onate, which is now closed, and the recently demolished Washington Elementary. Onate received an “A” grade and Washington a “B” grade. Principal Kristen Bischoff, who was the principal of both schools for the past five years, said this was a time of celebrating their academic successes and the diverse cultures of the north side community.

“It was a smooth transition of 500 kids and 75 staff members, since March 2017, to this new school,” she said. “I thought I would have never dreamed of being part of such a huge project in taking two schools from an “F” to an “A and B.”

Born and raised in Gallup, Bischoff says she is a “turn around” principal, who turns low, failing schools to thriving ones, and was excited about this new change. Being a leader for this project meant some notable transitions.

“I care about the kids and want them to be successful, and this new school is inspiring … of how it looks, and that makes students want to do much better,” she said.

Students of Del Norte walked over to the North Campus with their teachers and partook in the numerous activities that NorthFest had to offer.

Part of the activities was fence weaving, in which the students created colorful images in the chain link fences along the North Campus by weaving long, colorful strands of ribbon between each chain link. Art teacher Kelly Stapp says this activity expands children’s mind.

“We decided to let the children use their creative free minds, to use color, shape, and design,” Strapp said.

Having done partnerships with the North Campus for some years, Karen Stornelli, director of ATD Fourth World (All Together Dignity), said that whenever an idea comes up to be a part of the North Campus, they jump on it. ATD is a non-profit organization that fosters educational and cultural activities.

“We were excited to a part of this, since we work with a lot of the children of Del Norte in other programs, this was a perfect fit,” Stornelli said.

Partnering with three other organizations at Del Norte, gallupARTS and Art123 Gallery, also helped out with the activities. Rose Eason, who’s a part of both gallupARTS and Art 123, said this event will hopefully shed positive light on the north end of Gallup.

“I think it’s great. It’s so much fun. The whole idea is that the north side community kids, who go to school with their families, can share their stories of the north side,” she said. “What gallupARTS is doing is making a ‘Big Book’ and everyone is contributing one page to a larger-than-life-size book; where kids are sharing memories, like the times they caught a lizard, a friend’s birthday party, playing basketball with their brother, liking school and doing math. It’s a chance for them to express what they love about their community and to build community in the process.”

Story and photos 
by Dee Velasco
For the Sun

Share/Save/Bookmark