Camperdown celebrates The Feast and Potlatch
December 12, 2011 @ 9:22 AM
City People, The Greenville News, December 7, 2011
>This is the 23rd year that Camperdown Academy Y Group students have hosted the annual Feast. This homecoming event is a chance for current and former families to enjoy food, activities and games together. Y Group students Henri C, R.H. R, Will S, Amy F, Colin F, Cassidy V, and Maddie S continued with the long-standing tradition by baking and decorating cookies for all to enjoy. The students traveled to Laurenda's Family Restaurant in Greer to use the professional kitchen to learn how to bake and then ice cookies using pastry bags. More than 100 people came out for The Feast, spending several hours together on the Camperdown Academy campus.
>Camperdown Academy students recently celebrated Potlatch. Potlatch began many years ago as a way to highlight the special qualities of each member of the Camperdown Academy family. Although the idea of a Potlatch was borrowed from the Native Americans of the Northwest, it is in no way a religious ceremony. It utilizes the skills associated with observation, creativity, organization, written expression, and oral presentation. Students secretly draw names then spend several weeks observing and learning about the person. Students will prepare a form of written expression celebrating their Potlach partners in the form of a story, poem, cinquain, or sensory poem. Students will choose appropriately descriptive Native American names to represent their secret partner such as "Laughs with Great Thunder". To present the works, the student body gathers as each person reads his or her gift to their secret Potlatch partner.
From left to right: Brice V -E Group, Will S - Y Group, Riley F - C Group