Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday that celebrates family, community and culture. Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1. Its origins are in the celebrations of the first harvest. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase "matunda ya kwanza" which means "first fruits" in Swahili, a Pan-African language. Kwanzaa builds on the five fundamental activities of Continental African "first fruit" celebrations: ingathering; a time of ingathering of the people to reaffirm the bonds between them; reverence; a time of special reverence for the creator and creation in thanks and respect for the blessings, bountifulness and beauty of creation; commemoration; a time for commemoration of the past in pursuit of its lessons and in honor of its models of human excellence, our ancestors; recommitment; a time of recommitment to our highest cultural ideals in our ongoing effort to always bring forth the best of African cultural thought and practice; and celebration; a time for celebration of the Good, the good of life and of existence itself, the good of family, community and culture, the good of the awesome and the ordinary, in a word the good of the divine, natural and social. Technology has opened the way for sharing information and raising awareness. This site presents the opportunity for families to use technology to become informed about KWANZAA, it's principles, and ways to build a family tradition around a cultural holiday.