Browning Observes 30th Thanksgiving Assembly

For 30 years, Browning has celebrated the season of thanks with a Thanksgiving Assembly attended by the School community. Held on November 21, the event began with a welcome from Head of School John Botti, who remarked that he is grateful to work with the students and all of the fine people at Browning.

A number of boys addressed the audience, reading from such works as President John F. Kennedy’s Proclamation 3560 – Thanksgiving Day 1963 (“I urge all citizens to make this Thanksgiving not merely a holiday from their labors, but rather a day of contemplation”) and remarking on the annual Middle School Food Drive, which garnered 370 pounds of food for the New York Food Pantry’s efforts to provide 1,000 local families in need with a Thanksgiving feast.  

As is tradition, faculty singers led the community in “We Gather Together,” one of the many musical selections of the assembly. Performances by the Drumming Circle (“Improvisations from the New World”), Ovation Orchestra (Tchaikovsky’s “Folk Song”), Browning Balladeers (L. M. Child’s “Over the River and Through the Wood”) and Form II Handchimes (“An American Medley”) added to the festive nature of the event. The Panther mascot, along with music teacher Richard Symons, led the community in singing The Browning School Song before they departed to enjoy Thanksgiving recess.