Lincoln Northeast High School’s diversity and young civic leaders were on display on Sept. 20 during Multicultural Night.

The third annual “This is Northeast” event, which took place outside the school building, was lined with food trucks, dance and band performances, cultural and ethnic celebrations, slam poetry, and dozens of booths highlighting extracurricular programs at Northeast, the Rocket Community Learning Center run by Civic Nebraska, and area colleges and universities.  

Kwame Gyamfi, Civic Nebraska’s school community coordinator at Northeast’s CLC, said such engagement is a crucial part of the growth of all students in Lincoln. 

“It’s about community, bringing everybody together,” Kwame said. “The goal is to bridge communication gaps between the community and school families in the community.”

makes sure that every student has an equal opportunity to represent themselves and their passions at Multicultural Night.

“We have a couple of kids that have their own businesses so they’re selling products here,” he said. “We have our clubs, kids get to talk about the clubs, recruit, and get the chance to show off what they do.”

Audrey Nance, Civic Nebraska’s Capitol Experience Day coordinator, attended Multicultural Night, said it was gratifying to see what different communities at LNE and other schools have been working on this year, including middle-school dance teams and slam poetry.

“It’s nice to celebrate the diversity that makes Lincoln so cool,” Audrey said.

Those in attendance agreed that such events bring communities together, lift up student voices, and allow space for families to connect with one another and different institutions.

“The first year we had Multicultural Night was pretty small, last year it was decent, this year we’ve got involvement from the middle schools,” Kwame said. “We would eventually like to move the location from one place to another so every neighborhood can be connected to the event.”