Posted by Timothy Hornbecker on Jan 05, 2025
Tim Hornbecker, Clifford Phillips, and Maurice Rivers (who are all members of our Club's DEI Committee) attended the Kwanzaa celebration and dinner hosted by the OMI Cultural Participation Project on December 27, 2024. As one of the Celebration's coordinators, Maurice was interviewd by ABC 7 News. Maurice also reserved an information table for Rotary where our Club was able to distribute handouts and share our purpose, our meetings, and our service projects here and around the world. Many visited our table, including members from the Glad Tidings Baptist Church where Clifford was a member. Throughout the evening, it seemed that everyone knew Clifford.
 
The Kwanzaa celebration includes the lighting of seven candles in seven days to celebrate Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. The vendors from the community with their own small businesses were an example of the fourth candle, Cooperative Economics, by building and maintaining their own stores, shops, and other businesses to profit together.
 
 
Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holidays. Many African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa do so in addition to observing Christmas and their religious holidays. The ceremony included drumming, singing, dancing, libations, a reading of the African Pledge, and a discussion of the African principle of the day or a chapter in African history. When the music, dancing, and singing started, our Rotary Club couldn’t have had a better ambassador than Clifford!