Diversity Dinner 2024

Saturday, September 28 from 5:00pm to 8:00pm

It’s Back: the Diversity Dinner! A Peralta tradition since the 1970s, where we gather every year to reconnect, welcome new families to our community and share a joyful evening with friends, food, activities, dancing and more.

When: Saturday, September 28, from 5:00pm to 8:00pm

What is this: A community-wide welcome back party! The evening includes a potluck dinner, creative activities, music, dancing, and a family portrait

Who is invited: Everyone in the Peralta community - kids and grown-ups

Where: Peralta! Enter at the 63rd St entrance

Bring: The whole family! And food to share that represents your culture or family tradition. No pressure, we just like getting to know each other through food

Support: Sign up to volunteer! We need help setting up, staffing the event and activity stations, and help in the kitchen. Join us by clicking the link to the Konstella sign-up sheet.

Diversity Dinner? Where did the Welcoming Dinner go?

In recent years, this event was renamed the Welcoming Dinner. While this is still an event to welcome the community back from summer adventures, this year we want to honor the roots of this long-standing tradition and return to its founding name: the Diversity Dinner. For the last half century, this event has always been an opportunity to share and to learn more about each other, to create a supportive school community, and to have a great time. The school’s community looks very different today than it did in the 70s. What hasn’t changed is the passion that families have for our students, and the desire to create connections within and across our community.

A personal account of this event

“I hadn't expected my cheeks to be aching from smiling so much, my heart full with an evening of sheepishly awkward, but earnest introductions, dancing and fun. The real surprise happened in the days after when I noticed how many new folks I could share a "hello" smile with at drop-off, and how easily those smiles would turn into conversations. It also resulted in the best family portrait that's ever been taken of our family; posted with the others on the wall of the MPR as a free souvenir of the night. That's the experience of my first Diversity Dinner, then called the Welcoming Dinner back in 2017.” —Christine Martin, co-chair of the Diversity Dinner '23

Over time the name may have changed, but the idea has remained the same: every Peralta family is special and is a vital part of this community. This party celebrates that interconnectedness, made stronger not in spite of, but because of the differences that we bring. Please join us to share, learn about, and create this fun-loving and scrappy community.