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U.N. Day: Centering on how we’re alike
Peace Poems
Boardman schools
Eighth-graders at Boardman¹s Center Middle School composed poems about peace, reading them during a Wednesday United Nations Day assembly. The poems:
Peace Poem
By Frederic Ouimet
In the making of our history
As a human race we know no boundaries.
We fight for what we believe in
Not realizing the power we possess.
What we do is unimaginable,
The destruction created in enormous
Yet these things are happening everyday around us
Everyday we see the horror
Everyday people suffer
Why do we hate? Why do we fight?
Why can¹t we come together as one nation to achieve the impossible
To bring the dream to life
To break all barriers
To become one world, one nation, one people?
Peace Poem
By Ryan Betts
Throughout all of history, countries had their urges
To bring harm to each other with bombs and surges
Buy why do we do these things to one another
Hurting innocent children and mothers?
I¹ll tell you why, it¹s a game of greed
Ignorant to the hungry mouths to feed
But I dream of one day, when through every trial
We will have peace, Œcause peace is worthwhile
It will be peaceful, just like a vacation
Not having to worry for the future generation
I think that will be the day
When the skies above never turn gray
When I see the wars still today
Unnecessary; though needed some say
So while the triumph and failure play
I will wait and dream of that day.
Peace
By Dominic Zocolo
I had a dream last night
in it the people of the world didn¹t fight.
No one cursed or hated one another,
Everyone was either a sister or brother.
I had a dream yesterday
in it there were no battlefields, only places to play.
No one starved and no one hated,
Nobody there was ever segregated.
I had a dream a few nights back
in it no small villages were raided or attacked.
No one had reason to be scared,
everybody there always did care.
I had a dream long ago
in it peace was a strong as a river¹s flow.
Most dreams could never be,
but this one isn¹t out of our reach.
Peace Poem
By Fletcher Dunham
In the world today, there is much war
It shakes the earth down to the core
People scrabble and nations battle
Even young children sometimes can tattle
People are being killed every day
Most of the time in horrible ways
But we are all people in the end
So a message of peace we must send
No more fighting, no more war
No more killing behind closed doors
All men are equal, we must unite
To forever stop this evil fight
All the killing and death must cease
As that the whole world can live in peace.
Who Are We to Blame?
By Laura Davis
The world consists of so many places,
So many people, colors and races.
We fight, we kill, we hurt, we yell,
Why all this happens, I can not tell.
Every country has customs of many kinds,
But they also have similarities at times.
We are all equal, and have the same fat,
So its our diversity that we should celebrate.
Instead of thinking about the wars we fought,
We should put the past behind us and start a mixing pot.
We are all human, and pretty much the same,
So instead of pointing our fingers at others,
who are we to blame?
Peaceful Minds
By Michael Witte
These words and thoughts of the people in which surrounds us constantly change.
But the person decided by their character will always remain.
The love and the hate is never set in stone, without the peace, you feel alone.
These peaceful minds that we all have and live, with all this hatred, it¹s hard to forgive.
Everyone can easily relate, to all these people who discriminate.
This peace we all need at times can be blurry, just a little by little, there¹s no need to hurry.
Most people think their peaceful minds are set, we get ahead of ourselves and we all forget.
It isn¹t hard, these peaceful minds, it¹s all around you, just follow the signs
...just stop for a second and listen, for these peaceful minds will always glisten.
P
By Chelsea Osborn
Wake up in the morning
View the world around you
Take in all the problems and tragedies
All the possibilities.
One person, one change, one difference
That¹s all you need
To bring the world one step closer
To the peace and love it needs.
You don¹t have to do much; don¹t go out of your way.
Just simply help someone brighten their day
Say hello; go out to play
Little do you know, you just made their day.
And even if you didn¹t, please don¹t sorrow
Because there will always be tomorrow
More people, more laughs, more fun, more hellos
Anywhere and everywhere you go.
In everyone took this step every day
The world would change in so many ways.
Peace is love; peace is dear
Embrace it whether you are far or near.
By Denise Dick
Several eighth-graders read poems they wrote about peace.
BOARDMAN — Eighth-grader Shannon Farinelli, 14, learned that people share a lot in common no matter what country they come from or what customs they observe.
That was the spirit of United Nations Day conducted Wednesday at Center Middle School.
“We have a foreign exchange student from Korea, and I didn’t know he was so much like me — in school, foodwise and that he just likes to have fun,” Shannon said.
U.N. Day was the idea of Karen Kannal, the school’s safe- and drug-free-schools coordinator. She organized the event with the school’s guidance counselors.
Classes studied various countries and cultures and decorated classrooms in corresponding fashion.
“It is important to understand that tolerance is the ability to bear or accept the views, beliefs and practice of others that differ from our own,” Mindy DePietro, a guidance counselor, said at the Wednesday morning assembly. “What a miserable world this would be if we all looked alike, acted the same and shared the same views and beliefs.”
Students studied countries, religious beliefs, families and heritages, she said.
“Clearly, we always fear what we do not know or understand,” DePietro said. “It is our hope that some of those fears have been put to rest. We hope that respectful tolerance and acceptance will prevail.”
The program also included a performance from Team 2, a sign-language choir made up of second-graders from Robinwood Lane Elementary School. Seven eighth-graders also read poems they wrote about peace.
“Why can’t we come together as one nation to achieve greatness?” Frederic Ouimet read from his poem. “To achieve what cannot be done, to achieve the impossible, to bring the dream to life, to break all barriers, to become one world, one nation, one people?”
Students crafted a wooden pole into a peace pole, bearing, “Let peace prevail on earth,” in English, Arabic, Italian and Spanish.
“The pole will be permanently affixed in the front of our school as a reminder of how the United States of America and our little corner of it, the Mahoning Valley, continually changes,” said guidance counselor Anne Bott.
The pole includes space for more languages to be added by future students.
Bott said the peace pole is dedicated to Bill Vegh, a Holocaust survivor, who has spoken to students at Center and many other schools about his ordeal. Vegh, of Liberty, was ill and didn’t attend the ceremony.
Vegh was 14 when he, his parents and siblings were taken from their Czechoslovakian home to the Nazi Germany-run concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. His mother, sister and younger brothers were killed, and Vegh was separated from his father and older brother.
Vegh spent three years in concentration camps and later moved to the U.S. He wasn’t reunited with his brother and father until about 20 years after liberation.
He began speaking publicly of his experience in 1987.
“Today we honor Bill Vegh for teaching adults and children alike the basic lessons of human kindness — to love one another, to appreciate and accept each other, to make the world a better place a day at a time,” Bott said.
denise_dick@vindy.com