MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, Mich. — Tina Tots Learning Center, a preschool in Muskegon Heights, celebrated Black History Month Tuesday with a special program.
“This is our first year doing an actual Black History program, but we’ve done presentations before,” Tina Grissom McGee, owner of Tina Tots Learning Center, told FOX 17 Tuesday.
“It was so exciting. The kids worked really hard. We’ve been working for months and to put on this program, to actually get them to portray the person that they’ve been talking about, that they’re parents have been helping them learn about, has been awesome. It’s been so exciting,” Grissom McGee added.
Grissom McGee says the students started working on this program back in January.
“We’re singing, we’re rehearsing, we’re practicing to dance, we’re talking to parents, we’re getting costumes together, staff is talking to one another, so there’s a lot of planning that goes into this event,” she added.
Leading up to Tuesday’s presentation, students and staff learned about prominent figures in the Black community.
They dressed up as the nearly 30 people they learned about, including Michael Jackson, Mae Jemison, Simone Biles, Muhammad Ali, Josephine Baker and Ben Carson.
“We talk about who they are and what they mean in the community, around the world and they get so excited,” Grissom McGee said. “They go home and they talk about it, and so now that they’ve done the actual program and talked about the person, this is something that they’ll talk about for a long time to come.”
Grissom McGee explained to FOX 17 that, when she was growing up, she did Black History programs in school, so she wanted to give her students the same opportunity.
“It meant so much to me to be able to put this on,” she added. “It wasn’t just about me, it was about the staff, drawing community together, so since we have the facility and the room, I wanted to do a program for the kids.”
