The city kicked off its 11th annual city-wide cultural and ethnic diversity campaign on May 5, 2006 with a special assembly of students at B.M.C. Durfee High School. The ceremony began with readings by Devin Resendes and Sarah Pietruszka, the 4th and 10th grade American Dream Challenge essay winners. Principal Donald Rebello, Assistant Superintendent Ed Costar and Mayor Edward M. Lambert, Jr. gave brief welcoming remarks just prior to the presentation of the flags by the Navy Junior R.O.T.C. cadets. Flags of the nations were then presented with a multi-language blessing by Durfee students representing cultural organizations and faith-based communities in the city. Mayor Lambert presented the Key to the City to Sabrina Santos, creator of this year's poster featured on billboards through the city. The ceremony also included with two videos, one entitled "All in Fall River" written and produced by Maureen Ryan Estes, filmed and edited by Habib Semaan, and "D is for Diversity" created and produced by Henry Lord Middle School students and Frank Ray. The event concluded with musical presentations by the Atlantis Charter School Select Chorus and Tom Khoury & Friends. Click here to read the Herald News article.
 

(Top row, left) Odete Amarelo, Parent Community Liaison for the  Magnet Schools of Choice Program, introduces 4th-grader Devin Resendes. (Top row, center) Tenth-grader Sarah Pietruszka reads her American Dream Challenge winning essay. (Top row, right) Principal Donald Rebello is thanked by Assistant Superintendent Ed Costar prior to his introduction of Mayor Edward M. Lambert, Jr. (Middle and bottom rows) The members of the Navy Junior R.O.T.C. Cadets present the colors prior to the opening of the stage curtain to reveal the flags of the countries of the students who attend the high school. (Center photo) The winning the "One Earth, One People Under the Sun" cultural diversity campaign’s poster  is displayed on a billboard near the corner of Broadway and Columbia Street. The poster, created by Sabrina Santos while she was a fifth-grader at the Watson School, depicts a person, half white and half black, standing under a sun with a picture of the globe in the middle.