Cranberry Area Diversity Network

A day to honor. A day to reflect. A day to celebrate. With best wishes for a Happy Martin Luther King Day from CADN. Each year America honors the birth, life, and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, A time to remember his fight for the freedom, equality, and dignity of all races and peoples through nonviolence.

How can we encourage humanity in our community? Join CADN in fostering inter-faith understanding and harmony. World Religion Day is celebrated every January on the third Sunday of the month to promote understanding and peace between all religions. Let us listen and learn about different faiths from young adults in the upcoming event Come Together to Understand Each Other’s Beliefs. Use the link to register! cranberrydiversity.org/come-together-beliefs

CADN wishes you a Happy Lohri, Happy Sankranti, and Happy Pongal. The main intention of celebrating these festivals is to welcome Spring and the new harvest. They mark the end of the Winter season and give reasons to rejoice. Lohri is celebrated on January 13th annually in Punjab and northern parts of India. Families and communities sing, dance, and celebrate around a bonfire with great energy and spirit. Sankranti (meaning movement) marks the Sun's transit into the zodiac ...sign of Makara or Capricorn. This means the end of the winter solstice and the start of longer days. Makar Sankranti is a festival of the young and old. In Gujarat and Maharashtra, the skies are filled with colorful kites. Pongal is celebrated in Tamil Nadu and throughout South India. It is a four-day harvest festival starting January 14th, and it a thanksgiving to nature. Pongal is also a dish made of sweetened rice boiled with lentils and is dedicated to the Hindu sun god, Surya. See more

Orthodox Christmas is celebrated by Russian, Serbian, and Greek Orthodox churches and falls on January 6th or 7th. CADN wishes a Merry Christmas to all of our Orthodox neighbors, celebrating the birth of Christ on the older Julian calendar, which is recognized as Epiphany by many other Christians. This Christmas is much more about family and religion, and acts more like a second Christmas to the majority of those who celebrate it. In the image, you will see honey, evergreen..., oranges and bowl of kutya. Honey represents a sweet greeting to the infant Jesus and any other guests. Evergreen is there to represent living and rebirth, and is one of the rare items to provide color in the cold and bleak winter. Oranges come from the Greek Orthodox (Mediterranean influence), and is a more regional variant of evergreen. Kutya is a mix of dried fruits, grains, and/or nuts. All Orthodox churches have a special focus on grain, but in many different regional forms. See more

CADN hopes your Kwanzaa is filled with joy and prosperity. Kwanzaa is an annual celebration of African-American culture held from December 26 through January 1st. Each of the days is dedicated to one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. On each day, the family comes together to light one of the candles in the kinara, or candleholder, and to discuss the principle of the day.

CADN wishes you and your family a beautiful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank YOU FB friends for all your support throughout the year. We hope your holidays are filled with warmth and joy that extends through the new year. Christmas or the Feast of Nativity is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, a spiritual leader whose teachings form the basis of the Christian religion.