Mardi Gras Madness For Brockton Day Nursery

By Lisa E. Crowley
BrocktonPost
BROCKTON--Eleven-year-old Maite-Abigail Denis didn't mind that she came in third in Brockton Day Nursery's Mardi Gras Madness best hat contest, she was just glad her hat stayed together while she danced up a storm against adult challengers for the prize.
"I was worried that my ribbons were going to come off," Denis said after the contest was over and she took a break from dancing to watch the festivities with her mother Nadege, and 4-year-old sister, Tamah. (Pictured, second photo from top, left)
Maite-Abigail may not have won the hat contest yet, but her mother Nadege said possibly next year because the family had so much fun at Saturday night's party which raised money for the center's scholarships, that there is no way they will miss the event next year.
"This is such a wonderful event," Nadge said. "They really did a great job," she said.
Brockton Day Nursery, a 117-year-old non-profit day care center that helps needy families and single parents, transformed the Shaw's Center into a cavalcade of purples, greens and yellows for the 6th annual New Orleans-style Mardi Gras, complete with jugglers, magicians, a pantomime and a flamboyant, tuxedoed performer on stilts.

And music filled the event from start to finish, beginning with the Hot Tamales, a foot-stomping, can't-sit-in-your- seat Dixieland jazz band followed by sensational dance music from the 70s to the present spun by DJ Rob Peters.
There was a cornucopia of silent auction items, food to fill the senses from Creole specialties to traditional King's Cake with its hidden surprise that earns the one who finds it a special prize.

Vanassa Leite, the nursery's executive director, said the event exceeded expectations with a crowd of 250 people--"a record night," and the group expected to collect more than $12,000--$2,000 more than last year's event.
Anita O'Brien, one of the daycare's teachers, who beat M for the honor of best hat, said the nursery is a super place to work and bring children--an enterprise that couldn't have lasted so long without the support of the staff and community.
"The message is to teach kids to learn to love and love to learn," O'Brien said. "Love is the answer--when you love, everything else in life is simple," she said.