Clearview Elementary School third-graders, teachers and staff gathered outdoors Monday morning to join in the international celebration of World Peace Day, coming together to create an art installation with pinwheels on the front lawn of the school campus.

 

It was the fifth-annual “Pinwheels for Peace” event held at the school, according to art teacher Kathy Gerdts-Senger.  The students made their own pinwheels in the art classroom earlier in the week, and planted them on the lawn in the shape of the international peace sign at the start of the program. Principal Sheri Rutar welcomed all the participants and explained the purpose of the program before the pinwheels were planted.

 

Teaching consultant Mary Dank returned this year with her box of symbolic birds, which included several white doves.  As part of the program, she held one of the doves and explained the significance of the dove in the iconography of the world peace movement. She then released the dove, along with a group of pigeons, most of which circled above the event site before flying off to return to their home coop at the Dank residence in St. Cloud. One intrepid pigeon, however, decided to explore the school building before embarking on the return journey to St. Cloud, though it was finally encouraged to cut class and fly on home.  Dank and her husband raise doves and homing pigeons, which they also enter in races.

 

The first Pinwheels for Peace project was created by two Florida art teachers, who put together the first installation in 2005. World Peace Day and Pinwheels for Peace are now sponsored by an organization called Pathways to Peace, which estimated that 3.5 million pinwheels were created in classrooms around the world to celebrate the event last year.