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Youngstown kids create' pinwheels for peace'
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Five-year-old Braydon Polk used just about every color in the crayon box to decorate his Pinwheel for Peace.
Braydon and his fellow kindergartners at Horizon Science Academy made and decorated the pinwheels and stuck them into the flower beds in front of the school as part of International Peace Day.
“It was their version of peace,” said Jessica Cene, school spokeswoman.
“That could be playing a game, spending a day with family or it could be something to do with war.”
For Braydon, peace means “be helpful, and no one will bother you.”
Each pinwheel was constructed from white paper folded into the petals of the wheel with a peace sign pinned to the middle. The children colored the decorations.
“It’s so the wind will blow them,” explained Sydni Johnson, 5.
Elijah Gray-Trice and Nevaeh Benteley, both 5, both pointed out they like to watch pinwheels spin as the wind blows, but Elijah had a different view of the peace theme.
“Peace out,” he said.
Pinwheels for Peace was started in 2005 by two Florida art teachers to provide students with a way to express their feelings about things going on in the world and their lives.
The project’s first year, groups in more than 1,325 locations throughout the world planted about 500,000 pinwheels. In 2011, more than 4 million pinwheels were planted in 3,500 places including the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
The event isn’t political.
Horizon Science Academy on Southern Boulevard houses students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It’s managed by Concept Schools, a Chicago-based nonprofit management organization that manages 27 charter schools that have a math, science and technology focus.