mrwil65
Active member
I was born & raised in Decatur , IL., and remained there till my wife Dorothy passed in 2016. However, someone sent me this letter about our School children and I wanted to share this.
PLANTING BEAUTY
When Jake White started going to Johns Hill Magnet School, he discovered that his new schoolmates represented a much wider range of nationalities than he'd known at his former school.
So when it came time to create a design for the new planters at Johns Hill, the eighth-grader knew just what he wanted to do: he painted three flags, one for Yemen, one for Mexico, and one for the United States.
“I have a lot of friends from Yemen,” Jake said on Friday, when the Beautify Decatur Coalition visited Johns Hill to bring flowers for the planters as an Earth Day celebration. Last fall, said art teacher Kathy Balamos Ganley, 100 students submitted designs for the planters, and students voted on their favorites. With four planters, 16 students' designs were chosen and the young artists painted the planters with acrylic paints, which Ganley will cover with clear coat to protect them from the weather. Two planters will flank the main entrance, and two others will flank the entrance on the other side of the building where buses and car riders enter and leave. “Our two school chairs, Kathy Althoff and Sue Phillips, worked with Kathy (Ganley) to initiate this particular project, which we love,” said Jill Davis, co-chairwoman of Beautify Decatur with Susan Avery. “There's a whole revamp of the Johns Hill area with block by block projects. We really want the students to feel compelled to continue with this kind of beautification and taking care of this community.” “And we merged that whole idea with art, because we're an arts integration magnet (school),” Ganley added. “What better way than to incorporate some art with the giant flower pots?”
It was a total student immersion, Davis said, because the students were involved with every aspect of the project, including putting the plants into the planters on Friday.
Eighth-grader Jack Wilkinson's design was a banner with Johns Hill on it, and beneath that is a hill with trees that he hopes will remind people of Earth Day, he said.
Brookelynn McDonald, also in eighth grade, enjoys painting flowers, so her design is all flowers in a variety of colors.
Beautify Decatur Coalition, organized in 2012, conducts litter cleanup projects, green space development, no-litter zones, places and creates planters like the ones at Johns Hill, and works to make Decatur a prettier place. Encouraging kids to get involved, Davis said, is an important part of their mission.
“We hope to do something like this again,” she said.
PLANTING BEAUTY
When Jake White started going to Johns Hill Magnet School, he discovered that his new schoolmates represented a much wider range of nationalities than he'd known at his former school.
So when it came time to create a design for the new planters at Johns Hill, the eighth-grader knew just what he wanted to do: he painted three flags, one for Yemen, one for Mexico, and one for the United States.
“I have a lot of friends from Yemen,” Jake said on Friday, when the Beautify Decatur Coalition visited Johns Hill to bring flowers for the planters as an Earth Day celebration. Last fall, said art teacher Kathy Balamos Ganley, 100 students submitted designs for the planters, and students voted on their favorites. With four planters, 16 students' designs were chosen and the young artists painted the planters with acrylic paints, which Ganley will cover with clear coat to protect them from the weather. Two planters will flank the main entrance, and two others will flank the entrance on the other side of the building where buses and car riders enter and leave. “Our two school chairs, Kathy Althoff and Sue Phillips, worked with Kathy (Ganley) to initiate this particular project, which we love,” said Jill Davis, co-chairwoman of Beautify Decatur with Susan Avery. “There's a whole revamp of the Johns Hill area with block by block projects. We really want the students to feel compelled to continue with this kind of beautification and taking care of this community.” “And we merged that whole idea with art, because we're an arts integration magnet (school),” Ganley added. “What better way than to incorporate some art with the giant flower pots?”
It was a total student immersion, Davis said, because the students were involved with every aspect of the project, including putting the plants into the planters on Friday.
Eighth-grader Jack Wilkinson's design was a banner with Johns Hill on it, and beneath that is a hill with trees that he hopes will remind people of Earth Day, he said.
Brookelynn McDonald, also in eighth grade, enjoys painting flowers, so her design is all flowers in a variety of colors.
Beautify Decatur Coalition, organized in 2012, conducts litter cleanup projects, green space development, no-litter zones, places and creates planters like the ones at Johns Hill, and works to make Decatur a prettier place. Encouraging kids to get involved, Davis said, is an important part of their mission.
“We hope to do something like this again,” she said.