Tuesday was about as mixed up as you could get during Lehighton Area Elementary Center’s lunch period.

Hot dogs were served on hamburger rolls. Staff were dressed a little bit differently. And, most importantly, students were sitting with peers they likely never found themselves next to before. It was all part of the school’s first Mix-It-Up Day, organized by teachers Patti Ebbert and Tiffany Strausberger.

“The idea is to have students sit next to people they wouldn’t normally sit next to and get to know more about that person,” Ebbert said. “Students got a colored popsicle stick when they came into the cafeteria, and that guided them to where they would sit for lunch.”

A screen was lowered in the cafeteria with ice breaker questions that students could use to get conversations started. Kindergarten and second-grade classes were the first group to try out the idea, but students were far from the only ones “mixing it up.”

Cafeteria staff served hamburgers on hot dog buns and mixed vegetables as part of Tuesday’s lunch offerings. Many teachers also dressed in a mixed-up fashion.

Lehighton students joined more than 1 million other students across the country trying to help break down social and racial barriers. The event was first launched by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project in 2002.

Cafeterias are the focus of Mix It Up because that’s where a school’s social boundaries are most obvious.

“Normally, students sit with their own class and it’s very structured,” Strausberger said. “The whole goal of today is for them to branch out and either meet someone completely new or learn something new about someone they met previously. Each student signed a pledge to do just that.”

Lunch periods also featured a visit from Humphrey the hamster from “The World According to Humphrey” book series, which has quickly become the school’s mascot.

When Lehighton’s four elementary schools combined into one elementary center, each student read about Humphrey as a unity activity to bring the school together.

“He’s a symbol of unity,” Strausberger said, “and hopefully one of the things the students take away today is that we’re all alike in many ways.”