On Saturday, September 21, students were dancing away the cloudy days at the Warner Center during The Hill School’s first DEI block Party, an event promoting the inclusivity of the whole community.  

The first of its kind, the event featured Spanish, Korean, and other cultural food, including make your own boba. Movies were featured inside the Warner Center along with make your own lego flowers, and string lights were hung over the grass filled with fun yard games such as spike ball and cornhole. Music of all languages was played as everyone came together to work on an art wall, painting handprints with their countries’ respective flags and greetings in their home languages, sharing the messages of peace, creative art, culture, and the rich identities that make Hill what it is. According to Eric Khong, the new Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the wall will be put up around the campus in various spaces, adding a touch of student voice and culture to Hill. “The original idea for the block party was that the DEI Student Council and I thought that while the Warner Center was a space that was important for people that knew about it, there were a lot of people in the community that didn’t know about it,” Khong explained. ” I would always get people asking ‘is this the facilities?’[or]‘is this where we pick up packages?’, and we thought it would be really nice to have an opening kickoff party so that people that maybe were never familiar with the space or never felt comfortable coming in could.” 

Hill DEI Co-Chairs Nicole Leonardo ’25 agreed stating that “The main purpose [of the block party was] to tell everyone we’re here and this is an open space for everyone to come by.”   Not only this, the art wall also introduced a landmark permanence of this event. “The idea of this is instead of just coming together, there’s documentation we can put: something that makes us feel like this is Hill…we just wanted a space where everyone’s voice is visible,” Alyssa Diwale ’25 mentioned.  When we think of ‘Hillness’, we usually think about all of the ways we come together in our similarities, but this event reminded us that Hill is special because we all bring our own backgrounds and identities to the table. The foundation of ‘Hillness’ is all the ways we are different—how we show each other new perspectives in order to build a community of understanding and diversity. Having an event that celebrated all of the Hill community, introducing many to the Warner Center and what it promotes, shows the very reason we have a Dean of DEI and a student council in the first place. Adam Yao ’26, HASOGI president in attendance at the event, said “I think that it’s great seeing all these people from different backgrounds coming together and celebrating the cultures, and I’m very proud of how inclusive and embracing we are of everyone around us.”.   

Hill cares about coming together and not just respecting, but celebrating, all of the ways we are unique, and this block party was a great step towards future events of the sort that allow everyone to come and meet new friends, play fun yard games, eat good food, watch movies, and share their art. It was also a great step in introducing Khong as our new Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion , who seems more than content to further integrate DEI into Hill’s campus.