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On the last weekend of summer, we participated in the Blue Family Picnic which has been held in the Šeduva city park for seven years now. The Blue Family Picnic is intended to strengthen community, reduce social inequality and carry on family traditions.

We came up with all sorts of activities for attendees, including recognizing Jewish religious regalia, teaching them to write their names in Hebrew, a puzzle made up of period photographs of the shtetl, how to make traditional Sabbath challah and how to set the Sabbath table. Younger attendees made models of the shtetl, learned how to arrange food items on the plate for Passover seder, and spinned the dreidel. We treated everyone to traditional Litvak dishes as well.

So many friendly and eager-to-learn families came to the picnic. We wanted to share with them in an engaging way the culture and traditions of the Jewish community of Šeduva and to remind of the town's not-so-distant past, the shtetl of Šeduva where Jews and Lithuanians lived together. Two special guests attended the event -- two women from Šeduva for whom the shtetl isn't lost in the mists of time. They spent their childhoods in the shtetl and have shared their memories with us numerous times.

We sincerely thank the Šeduva Culture and Crafts Center for the invitation to come to the picnic. Special thanks go to the visitors for their active engagement as well as to the Lithuanian Jewish Community for providing the traditional Jewish dishes: cholent and freshly baked challah.

We look forward to next year when we can meet again at the park in Šeduva!