The school community at Hugh B. Bain Middle School is excitedly anticipating their first-ever Winter Carnivale which will take place on Friday evening, December 1 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event is designed to provide the community and its families with an inexpensive night out. 

“Our local community will be able to walk to this event, they can spend time with other families, get their holiday shopping done, and support local businesses at the same time,” said one of the event’s organizers and Bain faculty member, Jen Lowell. “There will be a bounce house, face painting, tattoos, pictures with Santa, crafts, activities and more. We are even hoping to have some food trucks participating in the event.”

The school has reached out to many of Cranston’s local businesses and community partners for support in the hopes of providing those in attendance with plenty of opportunities to shop, to network and to have fun.

“We already have more than 30 vendors who have agreed to participate and support this event, including Avon, Thirty-one Gifts, Usborne Books, Pampered Chef, Basil’s Pizza, Walt’s Roast Beef, and Gotta Q,” Lowell said. “Vendors are donating gift certificates for our raffle prizes or items to be sold or raffled off, or some portion of the proceeds from their profits that night to help us out. We are still looking for any other vendors who would like to participate.”

The first 100 families to arrive at the event will receive swag bags filled with some extra goodies, such as coupons, pens, magnets, etc., all of which Lowell hopes will be donated, and they will also using donated bags from Neighborhood Health. 

The success of the Winter Carnivale is important to the Bain community for many reasons, according to Lowell. First and foremost, it will provide a much-needed boost to the Student Activities Fund at the school.

“Our school is a Title I school with over 75 percent of our students receiving free or reduced lunch. We are the most ethnically diverse school and most of our families do not have the means to cover additional expenses like field trips,” she said. “We are hosting this fundraiser as a way to raise money for our students’ activities, such as a whole-school trip to the Boston Museum of Science. So many of our students have never been to the museum before, which is something so many kids take for granted. Between the cost of the bus, the cost of the admission and the additional activities inside and the cost of an extended day event, this is something our students normally could not afford.”

Additionally, the event is providing a much-needed morale boost to the staff and students at Bain as well, offering them an activity to look forward to outside of the regular school day and school work, as well as something to channel their creative efforts towards.

“The students at Bain have been doing their part to help in the preparations for the event and have been working on crafts such as coasters, ornaments, charms and cards which can be sold that evening. Even former students and former parents have been offering to come back to help out or to donate their time or goods to the event,” she said. 

Anyone who wishes to showcase their business or crafts at the event or who wishes to donate to the event or to the Bain Student Activities fund directly, can contact Lowell at Hugh B. Bain Middle School: jlowell@cpsed.net or by calling the school at 270-8010.