By Andrew Shah, Lizzie Huettl, Susu Guo
Every four years, the entire Moorestown Friends School community comes together as one to celebrate May Day. An integral member of the May Day planning process is MFS Director of Parent and Alumni Programs Suzanne Abrams, who told WordsWorth, “I’m excited to be involved with the long-standing tradition at Moorestown Friends School and to work together with the division directors and other departments to make it a great day for the students and the faculty and the staff.”
Abrams, who is in her second year as the Director of Parent and Alumni Programs, has relished the opportunity of planning May Day and has been involved with the coordination of various parts of the day for the past year. One crucial part of the planning process, Abrams explained, is coordinating with each of the division directors to see what will work best for each of the divisions of students. “I’m in touch with Lower School to coordinate what will work with them and with Middle School to see what they’re working on in class and what would make sense as an activity for May Day. For Upper School, I’ve worked with Mr. Brunswick and Ms. Godley to talk about costuming this year, so we all work together,” Abrams remarked in an April 11 interview. The teamwork aspect of May Day is quite important, as it is also a celebration of the students and faculty coming together to celebrate their collective work. Abrams cited communication with Middle School teachers about whether or not a miniature “wax museum” would be an appropriate and relevant exhibit this year, as it was a successful May Day feature four years ago.
Another important part of the planning process, Abrams elaborated, is figuring out how to reaffirm the strong sense of community that Moorestown Friends School brings to the table. The main challenge in regards to this aspect of planning comes from attempting to bring together students ranging from ages 3-18. When asked about this, Abrams stressed “cross-divisional interaction” as something that those planning May Day emphasize in their meetings leading up to the big day.
Although the sense of community that May Day inspires among each of the three divisions at Moorestown Friends is one of the main goals of the event, Abrams expressed the school’s desire to bring together a the community as a whole, both in terms of Moorestown Friends School and the South Jersey region. “[Another aspect of May Day] is that the faculty and staff is involved and alumni come back, so it brings graduates back to the school. We’ll have some prior May Day queens attending, so that’s always really nice to have those alumni coming back… It brings our whole community together.”
One aspect of May Day that Abrams expressed an increased level of excitement for is the food drive that will take place during the week leading up to May 4. “This year we are also going to look at our greater community, so we are going to be doing a Food Drive the week leading up to May Day.” In her response, Abrams stressed the importance of not only having a positive impact on the MFS community, but also the community that surrounds MFS: “We want not only to be looking at our community and celebrating all that is great about MFS, but also realize that we’re a part of a bigger community and we can work together to support our greater community as well.”
While planning of all these events may sound difficult, Abrams put any concerns about difficulties planning the event to rest by saying, “Everybody’s been working together and has been cooperative and helpful, so there have not been any real obstacles.” As for the timeline of the planning of May Day, it is certainly not a rushed process, as it starts well before the school year. “Each year we [the Development Office] plan one big event, and this year it’s May Day; last year it was the auction. Once we get through [the auction] we start planning a little bit in the spring but the major planning starts in the summer,” Abrams told WordsWorth.
When asked if there were any secrets she could share about the process, Abrams, with a laugh, said, “Well, if there was a secret, I would not share [that], but there aren’t any real secrets this year.” However, Abrams did offer up a preview of some events that students, faculty, and staff can expect to see at this year’s May Day, including juggling, acrobatics (both from a company and from MFS science teacher, Sarah Moser), and a performance from the MFS Dance Team.
While this year’s celebration of May Day will look a little bit different from the version the Moorestown Friends School community enjoyed in 2014, the extensive planning and painstaking preparation process should make this May Day one to remember.
