'Whirled' peace declared
Students celebrate International Day of Peace with pinwheels
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer

Upper Freehold Regional School District fourth-graders made these pinwheels to convey their thoughts on peace. The elementary school displayed the "whirled" peace messages outside during International Peace Day Sept. 21.

ALLENTOWN - Fourth-graders did more on Friday than just imagine a world of people living in peace.

Students at Upper Freehold Regional Elementary School made a public visual statement and participated in the International Day of Peace, also known as Peace Day, by displaying pinwheels outside their school conveying their thoughts on peace.

Under the direction of Upper Freehold Regional School District (UFRSD) guidance counselor Jessica Bryant and art teachers Tammy Diaczenko and Amy Kranchalk, students made and decorated pinwheels with words to describe their thoughts on peace and pictures such as white doves and peace signs.

One of the approximately 135 pinwheels displayed in front of the school read "If one has peace, it changes the world. If the world has peace, it changes the universe."

The colorful pinwheels were displayed to help the community celebrate the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21, which is an annual, worldwide movement to create one day of global ceasefire and nonviolence.

UFRSD classes and members of the administration were encouraged to take time out of their day on Friday to walk along the front of the school and view the pinwheels.

"The neat thing about this project is that students all over the world are doing exactly what they are doing in Upper Freehold, truly creating a strong and united message world peace," said Louise San Nicola, the school district's public information officer.

"The students were very excited about the concept," she added.

More than 1.2 million pinwheels were spinning in over 3,000 locations around the world on Sept. 21, according to the Pinwheels For Peace Web site.

"Pinwheels For Peace" is an art installation project that was started in 2005 by two art teachers in Coconut Creek, Fla., as a way for students to express their feelings about what's going on in the world and in their lives. The project was quickly embraced by schools in other communities across the country and has since boasted more pinwheels in more locations every year since it began at Monarch High School, according to the Pinwheels For Peace Web site.

The Upper Freehold Regional students' pinwheels will ultimately become part of another project when they are sent to an organization called Unite in Peace in Solana Beach, Calif., which will share them with other children around the world.

Unite in Peace started collecting pinwheels with peace messages on them through its "Pinwheels of Peace" project in December 2001 and has since collected and dispersed more than 3,000 pinwheels with messages of peace on them to children all over Europe, the Middle East, Bali, Indonesia, Baghdad, Iraq, Asia and the United States in an effort to convey connectedness among all children and to inspire them to take action now "to make true, lasting social change" in the world, according to the Unite in Peace Web site.

"This activity was a really nice way to spread messages of peace across the world through the actions of our youngest citizens," San Nicola said.