“What’s Kids on the Block?”

“What’s with the all black clothing?”

“Don’t they use puppets or something?”

Kids on the Block is an organization that began in 1977, and has grown to over a 1,000 troupes worldwide. It is a program that’s platform has been used all over the nation, and all over the world.

Students in a Kids on the Block troupe will go to the elementary schools to educate other students on important topics. The students will dress in black in order to focus the attention on the puppets, and with the puppets they will act out skits to teach the students important life lessons.

The topics that are often addressed are how to handle situations in which a person has a disability, as well as how to handle various social or safety issues.

However, it’s not all puppets and games. Next Thursday (May 7^th), East Noble’s puppet troupe will be traveling to the Impact Institute and performing a skit for the culinary students.

In the skit entitled “That’s Amore!” a well-to-do Italian restaurant called Bella Italia faces the competition of another restaurant, Venetian Nights. Mario, an employee at Bella Italia, discovers that the recipe for the secret pasta sauce is missing, and upon snooping they discover that the recipe was stolen by their competition. The Bella Italia staff then decides to disguise themselves and go to the gala opening of Venetian Nights in order to steal the recipe back.

Upon entering the kitchen they are stopped by Maria, the owner of Venetian Nights. Mario is then knocked upon the head with garlic bread and falls to the floor. Dani, Maria’s little sidekick, bends over Mario and pulls the recipe out of his pocket. To the dismay of Bella Italia, they discover that Mario was in cahoots with Maria (Who actually is his sister! What?!) and had stolen the recipe for her.

The skit ends happily, as all misconceptions are tied up, and Mario explains that he stole the recipe in order to get his inheritance back so he could afford a ring to propose to Christine (owner of Bella Italia). After he explains, Christian agrees to marry him, and the recipe is given back to its rightful owner.

While this skit deviates from the typical subjects emphasized by Kids on the Block, it is an excellent opportunity to serve other students in their community.

Kids on the Block set excellent examples for their younger peers, and do the community a great service by educating them on important social issues.