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Students, parents and faculty at St. Francis International School danced to music, sampled food and sweets and marked the end of the school year with a cultural celebration June 1.

Students wore clothes from their country of origin and parents supplied foods from their native countries as they celebrated the school's first year with a Mission Fair.

Sixth-graders Tania Palacios, 12, and Francis Picado, 12, wore long skirts embroidered with Latin American designs — Tania's in blue and Francis' in red.

Tania said her family is from El Salvador. Francis' is from Costa Rica.

Their classmate, Jessica Martin, 11, wore orange pants and a top from Vietnam.

The Mission Fair dates back to the 1970s, when it started at St. Mark's School in Hyattsville, said Nora Facchiano, who has run the fair for more than 30 years.

When St. Mark's and St. Camillus' schools closed at the end of the school year in 2010, they merged and reopened in September to form St. Francis International School in Silver Spring. They kept the Mission Fair alive because of the diversity of the school community, and the idea of supporting Catholic missions, Principal Tobias Harkleroad said.

He said 68 percent of the parents of the 440 students at the school are immigrants.

"It's very reflective of this area," he said.

In preparation for the fair, each class chose a country to study and set up a booth with displays showing the geography, history and cultural highlights of the nation.

Fifth-graders Kimberly Phillips, 10, and Mbatoma Kpolie, 11, said their class chose to study Italy and Trinidad Tobago.

"I learned the geography and how Italy is a peninsula and stretches out. We [also] learned about the currency from both countries and their flags," Mbatoma said.

The festival raised money to donate to a Catholic mission by selling food and trinkets at the fair.

One popular food booth sold Jamaican food.

The booth served chicken curry, jerk chicken and rice and vegetable patties, along with tamarind, ginger cookies and bags of banana chips.

"There are a lot of people from Jamaica here and it was warm and tasteful food," said Maylin Perla, a parent helping serve the food.

Parent Asha Curry, whose mother is black and father is from India, led the students in Bhangra dance.

"It's a dance that's native to the northern part of India. It's been very popular with the kids. As soon as they hear the music, they start moving," Curry said.

Seventh-grader Tim Crane, 12, wore a tall "Cat in the Hat"-style hat he bought at the fair. He also spent money on a ring pop, chips and an Italian ice, he said.

Tim went to St. Mark's school last year and said the Mission Fair has always been nice.

"It's good they have kept up the tradition," he said.

The tradition included sending a check for $2,264 to the Franciscan Chapel Center in Tokyo to assist people affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

pmcewan@gazette.net