Hip hop karaoke, food, face painting, graffiti art and soccer are all coming to campus for the Hip Hop Block Party hosted by Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Politics Department Jocelyn M. Boryczka’s Politics of Race, Class and Gender class.
“It uses hip hop as a tool for celebrating cultures from diverse communities,” said Boryczka.
The event will be in the Lower Level Barone Campus Center on Thursday, April 28 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and is open to anyone who is interested. Young students from Bridgeport’s McGivney Community Center will be in attendance.
The block party is an annual event for the children at the McGivney Center; this is the eighth year that the event will happen.
“[McGivney is] a community center that works with youth in a vulnerable community there,” said Boryczka. “It does awesome stuff. It has after school tutoring, basketball games and it has bingo for senior citizens.”
During the semester, students of the class go to the McGivney Center to help out with the kids. The block party is a way for them to continue that relationship of mutual teaching and learning.
“Every year, we always ask if they want to have the block party in the McGivney Center or here,” said Matt Parenti ‘17, “and every year they always ask to come here because the kids want to see what it’s like here at Fairfield.”
Parenti, who attended the block party last year, reported that everyone had a great time. The children enjoyed singing with Fairfield students and Fairfield students cooked food for the children.
However, despite having such a good time last year, Parenti is hopeful that this year’s Block Party will be even better.
“I’m hoping that we will have more stuff, it’ll be a bigger event and the real thing that’s going to make it better is more student engagement,” he commented.
Parenti added, “I think it’s a very enjoyable event that is good for the student life here at Fairfield, as well as the community of Fairfield and the community of Bridgeport.”
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