By Jandeliz Hernandez
This year, the Office of Intercultural Initiatives, Unity House, and President’s Office will be hosting its second-annual Breaking Bread event. Breaking Bread will be taking place this February and there will be quite a few changes made to the grand event in comparison to last year’s first-annual event.
Above: Peter Rojas, Assistant Dean of Intercultural Initiatives, and Jandeliz Hernandez, Unity House Lead Student Coordinator meet for Breaking Bread preparation.
Breaking Bread is an event full of deep conversations, food, and a welcoming community. Although the basis of the event will remain the same, many changes are being made throughout the planning process to ensure this event feels new and fresh to those re-invited and invited for the very first time.
“Two major changes will be how we serve the food,” said Rojas. “Last year we did single plated meals but this year we are looking for more family style, all the food in the middle, similar to those big family dinners you had at home. We hope this will create a more natural, organic feel to communicate. The other comment is implementing our new marketing theme of plus one. We like to think we as a committee know everyone but we don’t so we will rely on our initialinvitees to do the work for us.”
When creating this event last year, Rojas had the idea that food would assist in bringing people together and was inspired by America’s Sunday Supper. Through that thought, a grand idea blossomed and I am honored to have had the opportunity to partake in the creation of this event both last year and this year.
Thavary Hay, a Unity House student coordinator mentions she’s excited to not only assist in the event planning but is thrilled to walk into a space where she will feel comfortable in engaging in these conversations.
“There’s no big coordinated experience or conversation like this at Merrimack, this is a lot more personable.” said Hay.
Last year’s event was very successful. This year’s planning board are looking forward to engaging in the creative process of this event and are excited for the outcome. I know I am very excited. We are applying the feedback we got from last year’s event to this one, there is so much more to come from it.
“Honestly I am looking forward to seeing how much the hype has grown to become reality,” said Rojas. “When it comes to the overall core component of the program which is the discussion part, we really tried to be intentional knowing that we would need to change it for the following time. When you start thinking about how do you start a conversation with a stranger, how do you do it, what’s the best way to have convo. Not only that, dig deep into the convo. All the feedback that was given will be taken into consideration and most likely implemented.”
I am looking forward to the intricate details we will be adding to this event. I cannot wait to hear all the feedback we will receive from the event, and I hope people walk away with a lot more knowledge and information than they did when they came in.
