From Puerto Rico to Sussex County: How the mobile Culture Club inspires Delaware youth to celebrate their heritage

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Inside a small restaurant in southern Delaware, a group of students steps through the doors for the first time. The air smells like home — warm masa, cilantro, fried plantains — and bachata music hums through the speakers. Some pause, recognizing their country’s flag hanging among others near the register. Others beam as they hear the familiar sound of Spanish spoken by the owner near the counter.

Students from summer programs walked the streets of Milford and Georgetown, stopping in at Latino-owned businesses. They explored restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries and more — not only to learn how these entrepreneurs started their businesses, but to see how culture, food and identity intersect.

“When they would walk in and hear their music, see their flag, smell the smells of their food and see people who spoke to them in Spanish from their countries or from other countries nearby, their faces were just like, ‘Wow,’” said Neyda Albarrán, founder of The Culture Club PR. “But not only businesses that were Latino, but like a pizza place that was owned by Latinos, they were like, “Wait, stop. That’s not a food that’s normally traditional.’ There are law firms, there are barber shops, there’s all kinds of things.”

For Albarrán, what began in Puerto Rico as a small passion project in a spare room of her parents’ home has grown into a traveling cultural classroom — one that has moved with her from Puerto Rico to Florida and now Delaware.

“The Culture Club PR exists to promote a culture of peace through multicultural learning, experience and celebration,” she said, noting that she created the club to expose her young son to the richness of world cultures when she couldn’t find any local programs that did so.

At the club’s beginning, children gathered in community centers and libraries.

“Every month, we had a workshop focusing on a different country, region of the world, culture or traditional celebration. The kids had a passport that we would stamp with the country’s seal and so they would be traveling around the world at all of our activities,” she said.

When she moved to Florida, Albarrán noticed how local youth were losing touch with their Puerto Rican heritage and language. She adapted the club’s mission to meet that need, hosting pop-up activities in malls and at radio station events and community festivals.

Three years ago, she brought The Culture Club PR to Delaware, where it continues to root children in their cultural pride, while expanding its reach and age group.

Expanding culture and connection

While The Culture Club PR originally served elementary-aged children, its impact has grown with its young learners. Now, it also reaches teens eager to become entrepreneurs.

“We’ve focused on elementary-age kids around 5 to 11 or 12 years of age, but we also started reaching out to young people through becoming global entrepreneurs and teaching young people entrepreneurial skills. Out of that, we already have two teenagers who have started their own business,” Albarrán said.

Today, the organization works closely with local school districts — including Seaford and Milford — bringing cultural programming directly into classrooms and camps. Through these partnerships, students step into real businesses from bakeries to barber shops and meet Latino entrepreneurs who share their own stories.

They also learn about traditional foods in hands-on ways. One standout event is Totally Tortillas, where kids make authentic tortillas while exploring the indigenous and cultural history of corn in Latin America.

“The plan was to expose them to the history and the power of corn in Latin American countries. It has religious, indigenous meanings. Then have them create real tortilla dough, not the ones that they can buy in a box or whatever,” Albarrán said. “The faces of the Latino kids who were like, ‘I know what that is,’ when I showed them all the kinds of corn and the ingredients … when they got to handle it themselves, create their own tortilla — it was amazing.”

“There’s a spark there and it awakens cultural curiosity,” she added.

The Culture Club PR also brings culture to kids through story walks that combine reading and movement.

“Our story walks are in three languages … English, which is usually the original text, we have a translation in Spanish and a translation in Haitian Creole,” Albarrán explained. “Once people realize that we all came from different places and we all have our distinct cultures, they can better appreciate others.”

Whether it’s reading books, touring businesses or cooking tortillas, Albarrán’s goal is to create experiences that make cultural knowledge feel alive, not just a classroom unit or a heritage month project.

While the organization now partners with schools, summer camps and community events across Sussex County, Albarrán hopes to expand these resources statewide and one day open a multicultural center in Sussex County, creating a permanent home for celebrating and sharing culture with generations to come.