About 450 students and 50 staff flew around the world in less than an hour equipped with passports, itinerary and agendas, while 30 representatives from 15 countries offered an "unbelievable display" of each country's cultural heritage, richness and diversity.

Countries represented included Austria, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Italy, Marshall Islands, Mexico, South Korea and Thailand.

"A tremendous opportunity" was how Susan Fishman, a fifth-grade teacher at Gainfield described the exhibits on display in the school gym. They "help make our small town children worldly," she said.

Ms. Fishman told Voices her favorite part of the celebration was watching her students' interest with other cultures. The "greatest gift of all" for her was to see some of her students take pride in who they are.

The students, she noted, returned to class with information about the traditions, dress, food, geography of other countries and a sense of respect for those who are different.

Being different was what GES Interim Principal Len Tomasello said he remembered most about his father's immigration story to America.

Dr. Tomasello told Voices his Italian father immigrated to USA as a child. Unable to speak English and different from others at school, his father's only defense at the time was arming himself with a pair of boxing gloves tied around the waist.

"I'll never forget that story," Dr. Tomasello said. "You wonder if there are kids who are misunderstood, not understood, and the majority's not going to take the time to understand why this kid is different."

Kelly Gugliotti, an instructional teacher leader and first-grade teacher, said, "breaking down those walls and misconceptions" was among the objectives she and Dr. Tomasello had in mind when they put World Cultural Day together.

"We realized our building was a melting pot of different cultures," Ms. Gugliotti said. "We thought a cultural celebration would let each child learn about everyone else's culture in a very positive way... It was a great way to bring everybody together."

No matter the different backgrounds, Dr. Tomasello wanted to emphasize, "We are all the same."

The Gainfield gym was transformed into a travel-globe for World Culture Day.

Waves of tourists in every color of the rainbow flooded all 15 countries, festive with bright reds, yellow, blues and silver displays around the perimeter of the gym.

Gainfield students representing their countries stood with parent-presenters, explaining, demonstrating and discussing their cultural heritage, dressed in their national attire with ease.

Brenda MacKellar, who represented Italy, hatched the theme, "We all smile in the same language," which was used on all correspondence related to the event.

Jennifer Hoedl, who represented Austria, put together passports for each of the students. The passports were stamped on arrival at each country.

Claudia Cavedagne, a certified dentist from Brazil, coordinated the 30 parent-presenters, 15 countries and three parent meetings, working from March until the end of May, as well as representing her country.

Mike Brooks performed a series of Tae-Kwon-Do demonstrations with his partner Michael Zandri. Third-graders Nicholas Petrini and Hannah Brooks also participated in the martial arts demonstrations.

The countries were not chosen at random, Dr. Tomasello told Voices, but represent the origins of Gainfield students.

Several countries had souvenirs for visitors: France had miniature paper Eiffel Towers that children could build and take home; China honored every tourist with a chance at calligraphy on arrival, a gold dragon coin or red 'lai-see' packet to take home; Italy demonstrated how pasta is made and gave every visitor an Italian book upon departure; India dotted every girl's forehead with a diamond bindi after the "namaste" welcome; and Guatemala had two-inch Worry Dolls that children could confide their worries to and tuck under their pillows at night.

GES kindergarten teacher Marion Bouffard, who represented Ireland, noted, "It was things that children could take back home that made it real to them."

Ms. Gugliotti praised the parent-presenters who did a phenomenal job decorating and articulating their culture.

Priti Ghatlia, who represented India, performed a vignette of Indian dances on stage.

A busy mom of two children, actress, painter and henna artist who has won numerous dance competitions in India and the U.S. Ms. Ghatlia strung together a vignette of five different types of dances from different Indian states.

She told Voices she wanted students to understand that India is similar to the U.S. because it is one country, divided into states. Each state has its own dialect, dance-style, culture and cuisine.

Her dance program started with Kashmiri and Bhangra styles from the north, followed by Garba from the west, semi-classical from the south and a Bollywood (Mumbai's Hollywood) finale which had the crowd roaring.

Cassia Verzello and Stacey Kobrock, who represented Guatemala, ordered approximately 500, two-inch miniature Worry Dolls over the Internet for children to take home as souvenirs of the Mexican and Central American cultures.

Ms. Verzello, who adopted 10-year-old Mady from Guatemala, said children and adults from these countries confide their worries to their dolls and sleep with them tucked under their pillows.

"It's a way in which that culture deals with emotional difficulties or sorrows," Ms. Verzello said.

She added that the dolls are also worn as necklaces, hair ornaments, used to decorate houses and come in different sizes.

Mary Beth Villa said she appreciated the diversity her daughter, Madison, a first grader, was exposed to on World Cultural Day. She told Voices it was great for Madison to experience such diversity in such a homogenous town.

Madison told Voices her class wrote about their favorite countries in their journals. Madison's favorites were China, Mexico, Ireland and Austria.

She loved the gold coin and calligraphy in China, the Mexican beans in Mexico and said she understands a little more about her grandfather's origins and would like to visit Mexico someday.

Joseph Cormilic, who represented Croatia, said such an event "makes people think beyond themselves. It broadens the person in a generic way to look beyond just yourself."

He told Voices his son, Michael, put artifacts on display that meant something to him which he had brought back from Croatia. He said he found it amusing that Michael also instructed him on dos and do nots for the presentation.

Nuch Phutirat, who represented Thailand, said the struggle to teach both her middle-school daughter and Gainfield-going child their mother tongue in a country where it is hardly spoken, is never ending.

Ms. Phutirat saw this cultural event as an opportunity to bring her culture forward and was thrilled when both her children helped put food containers together for the display and decorate it with banana leaves.

"Our culture is totally different and we have to adapt and improve ourselves to get along," she said.

Convinced the event has been a "wake-up call" to both staff and students, Dr. Tomasello believes, "These things are not going to happen naturally. The minority become part of the majority, but I don't want to lose any richness that we could lose in the interim."

With an objective "to raise the awareness of the diversity that exists among our families," Dr. Tomasello said he couldn't help but feel Gainfield had its own United Nations come alive that day.

"We may be fortunate to live in a neighborhood as diverse as this," Dr. Tomasello said, "but there is a tendency not to get involved beyond the barriers."

"Breaking barriers," is how Ms. Gugliotti and Dr. Tomasello summarized the day's magic.

The Internet may have brought the world closer, Ms. Bouffard said, "but there is something about traditional story-telling that you can't get from technology."

Ms. Bouffard said the common thread of dance, music, food and traditional story-telling, woven between each country, joined them as one.

Dr. Tomasello told Voices that when a parent-representative told him of the pride her son felt for the first time about his heritage, he almost had tears in his eyes.

"You can't ignore the potential of that kind of experience," he said. "What you want to do as a teacher or an administrator is make a difference. Even if that happened to be the only thing that came out of the whole day, it was worth it."

A teacher for more than 35 years, Ms. Bouffard believes it is very important to build and share a community because, "Our world gets smaller when we understand it."

"It was a day to remember," Ms. Cavedagne summed World Culture Day after three months of putting one day together.

"It is my legacy," Dr. Tomasello said, noting his plans to retire at the end of the academic year and his hopes that he has inspired teachers to learn more about other families, beliefs and cultures.

Remembering the impact of stereotyping people after 9/11, Dr. Tomasello said, "How quickly we were to judge anyone who looked anything like folks who caused that whole thing to happen.

"How sad that is particularly for a child, who has to look forward to a lack of understanding and then to be stereotyped with that group."

"He's made history come alive," Ms. Bouffard said. "And Dr. T. lives the respect for everyone in the school."