West Mercer Elementary Celebrates Diwali

Mercer Island, WA, November 13, 2023 – This afternoon West Mercer elementary celebrated Diwali.

Diwali is the Festival of Lights and is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains around the world. It signifies joy and happiness, light over darkness and good over evil. This year Diwali officially was on Sunday, November 12, so the school celebrated today.

“The most memorable part of Diwali for me is celebrating with my family and friends and enjoying some of my favorite foods,” said West Mercer fourth grade teacher Monica Singh.

“I am Hindu so I go to the temple and light diyas in my home. Diyas are lamps that are lit to symbolize inner peace and overcome darkness. One of the Diwali traditions that we do in our family is make Indian sweets and share them with people close to us. I am really grateful I get to celebrate Diwali with the wonderful students, staff and parents at West Mercer this year!”

As part of the celebration the whole school is celebrating today by wearing bright colors, painting Rangoli designs with sidewalk chalk in the undercover area outside at West Mercer, and sharing Indian dishes.

West Mercer fifth grader Shaivi Pandya what she and her class were doing to celebrate Diwali today.

“What my class did is we put up decorations last week. Later I am going to do a presentation on Diwali in my class and I am going to give everyone a small goody bag with a few gifts. My mom and a few other volunteers made a staff lunch for Diwali with Indian foods.”

West Mercer parents decorated the school and staffroom and catered an Indian lunch for staff consisting of samosas, chutney, paneer curry, chana masala, naan as well as sweet and savory snacks that were nut free. Contributions from West Mercer parents helped make the school celebration of Diwali a success.

West Mercer fourth grader Divit Kumar shared how his family celebrated Diwali this past weekend.

“So first we helped making decorations. And my mom worked on making foods, such as laddu, and foods that we use in our culture. So while she was making those we got ready for our prayers. So we kind of like put candles all over our house and then my mom gets the table ready and then we do a prayer. And then our mom gives us a colorful string around our hands and then she puts a marking on our forehead to give us good luck. And then they give out Diwali gifts. And then after that we ate food and enjoyed family time.

To learn more about Diwali go to Britannica or watch a very informative Diwali video from National Geographic.