WATERVILLE VALLEY, New Hampshire ??” Waterville Valley Resort hosted the 6th annual Keeping the Dream Alive cultural diversity workshop at the Waterville Valley Conference Center on Wednesday, January 11, 2006. 300 elementary and middle school students from Massachusetts and New Hampshire participated in a full day of activities that dealt with the awareness of prejudice and ways to help promote cultural diversity.

The workshop offered techniques from educators, law enforcement and military personal to help kids learn problem solving skills and positive ways to resolve conflicts with others. The students were also made aware of the significance and meaning of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and the importance of a non-prejudice society no matter one’s economic status, language, religion, skin color, physical disabilities or cultural origin.

During the morning workshop, students were given a potato and asked to study its shape, color, and size, and then apply the information learned to the potato and present that at an assembly. “Our group realized that every potato we looked at is different,” said one student, “just like every person here. We all might look different on the outside, but inside we all have feelings and bleed the same color.”

In the afternoon, students and chaperones took to the slopes on skis and snowboards and for many, this was the first time. Students were either broken up into groups with an instructor or allowed to go out on their own. With many smiling face on the slopes, waves of students returned their equipment and headed to a pizza party in the Base Lodge.

“The ultimate goal is to have the students return to school to share their experience with their peers,” said Wayne Jennings, president of the NH Cultural Diversity Council. “After a morning of diversity training and an afternoon of skiing or snowboarding, the kids leave Waterville Valley feeling that they have more in common with each other.”

For a full photo gallery of the event, please visit www.waterville.com.