Islanders celebrate Kwanzaa with food and fellowship

Henri and Faith White are no strangers to celebrations. They frequently entertain guests at their Etiwan Park home. On Dec. 26, they hosted Daniel Island’s first Kwanzaa fellowship with approximately 35 friends and family members.

Kwanzaa is a 40-year-old African-American holiday created by Maulana Karenga in 1966.

The weeklong event emphasizes the importance of family values with music, drums, dance, and drama and is highlighted with colorful and unique African fabrics and garments.

The Whites’ grandsons, Clifford Goodwin, a first-year student at Duke University, and Nicholas Goodwin, an Orangeburg 6^th-grader, organized the event. Clifford explained the significance and history of the holiday and Nicholas described how each family participates during Kwanzaa.

Members of the local Women of Faith, their spouses and friends then lit symbolic candles representing Kwanzaa’s seven principles: Umoja (unity); Kujichagulia (self-determination); Ujima (collective work and responsibility); Ujamaa (cooperative economics); Nia (purpose); Kuumba (creativity) and Imani (faith). Ceremony participants included Henri White. Tom Smith, Bob Uhler, Len Peters, Kathleen Turner, Norm Wolff, Billie Bacon and Joan Vitallo. A special prayer was offered for the Whites’ young neighbor, Christopher Sammarro and his family.

"We then celebrated in the traditional Daniel Island style enjoying culinary delights created by the guests, featuring a Christmas Shepherd’s Pie," Faith said. "I hope this is the ‘First Annual’ Kwanzaa to be held on Daniel Island and would like to see it expand more. But if it does, we’ll have to move it to another location because our house was packed."