TRINIDADIAN ARTIST: Young ladies of the historic African American Frances J. Bright Woman’s Club met Sonya Sanchez Arias at her solo exhibition “Then & Now” in downtown Lake Worth Beach. PHOTO COURTESY OF FJBWC

Lake Worth, Fla. – Throughout history, debutante programs have been highly regarded by African Americans as excellent cultural experiences for high school girls.

The debutantes of the historic African American Frances J. Bright Woman’s Club (FJBWC) were hosted for Women’s History Month by the Taste History Art & Culture Study Tours on Saturday, March 9.

The young ladies’ travel via minibus began with a multicourse lunch at Don Ramon Restaurante Cubano & Social Club in West Palm Beach.

The debutantes and their mentors then were taken by minibus to downtown Lake Worth Beach for a walking tour of street murals that adorn the historic buildings. There the debutantes also met Trinidadian artist Sonya Sanchez Arias who led them on a curator’s tour of her solo exhibition “Then & Now.”

The study tour concluded with a visit to the historic 1948 Osborne Schoolhouse (former “colored” school) in Lake Worth Beach’s Osborne neighborhood, a community established by Black Bahamian settlers in year 1917.

To the educational delight and surprise of the tour group, the director of the school had arranged for the tour group to meet Black former students of the Osborne school, now retired from various careers.

The former students shared inspiring stories about the times when the school operated for Blacks only during the Jim Crow era, and later years after integration when they then went to the school with whites.

The study tour for the debutantes included a curriculum guide per the Benchmarks and Strands in Social Studies, Civics and Government, and Visual Arts per the Florida Department of Education.

The historic African American Frances J. Bright Woman’s Club was established in Delray Beach, Fla. in 1959 and its debutante program was started a few years later.

The FJBWC is named in honor of Frances J. Bright, an African American educator who came to Delray Beach, Fla. in 1895 to teach at “colored” school #4, located on historic 5th Avenue in Delray Beach.

The school was a part of the Dade County School System at that time because Palm Beach County was not incorporated as a separate county until year 1909.

The leaders of this prestigious FJBWC are esteemed African American educators, professionals, and business owners.

The FJBWC debutante program’s mission is to provide mentorship and help provide etiquette training and cultural experiences for African American high school girls who are invited into the program based on their academics and good character status.

The program also raises educational scholarship funds for the ladies to pursue career goals.

The mission of the nonprofit Taste History Art & Culture Study Tours is to offer educational, art, history and cultural study tours for students from first grade through college highlighting the county’s multi-cultures, ethnic cuisines, art, architecture and the relevant historic information.

The program is designed to be a curriculum-based live lab, out-ofclassroom, on the road experience. The study tour is offered as a field trip of age sensitive amount of time of one day for grades first thru 12 or as a multi-days educational excursion for college students.

“The study tour is a multi-sensory tangible experience designed for students to complement their classroom learning,” said Lori J. Durante who developed the program in a volunteer capacity and is the volunteer tour guide/narrator.

The late Iris Apfel, who died March 1 at age 102, was the inaugural sponsor of the Taste History Art & Culture Study Tours when it launched last year. Nationally and internationally known, Apfel had a career in interior design for over 70 years, and was fashionably recognizable by her distinctive style of clothing and signature style of eyeglasses she would wear. Other inaugural support included Macy’s.

Last , 2023, marked the afterCOVID19 launch of the Taste History Art & Culture Study Tours program. Visit tastehistoryculinarytours.org.