Making Peace...

by
Kathleen Way Barton

I am apart of Sandy Hook Peaceful Arts, Inc. is a new non-profit created out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy that happened eight months ago.  We are a grassroots effort committed to healing and spreading peace through the arts.

Over the last few months we have been creating Peace Flags.  We started with the idea of sending Peace Flags as a "Thank you," to the many people and organizations that reached out to our community.  Then the Boston Marathon bombing happened, and we knew we should make our first Peace Flags for the Boston community.  We made hundreds at Newtown's Earth Day.  Then the tornadoes happened in Moore, Oklahoma, and we made Peace Flags for them.  In between, we made Peace Flags for the "Within Our Reach" event in town, and we made some for  a few of the  organizations that had reached out to us.

We discovered Peace Flags feel good.  Kids like to make stuff, and they like to give.  We were afraid at first the kids wouldn't want to donate their flags, that they would want to bring them home.  That didn't happen.  They wanted to spread peace.  They wanted to say "Thank You."

Our volunteers are ready to spread more peace and bring our Peace Flag Workshops to more children in Newtown and beyond.  Our workshops are educational and character building.  Coming together creating peace and art is healing.

Please support our fundraising effort on the Newtown Patch, your donation will help us make peace.

https://newtown.patch.com/patchworks/projects/
www.sandyhookarts.org
www.facebook.com/SandyHookPeacefulArts

Coming Out of Hibernation....

It's March.  Daylight savings time is here.  Time is marching on.  I called this blog "Coming Out of Hibernation," but I've been busy, doing stuff, going places.  I think we all have been busy.  It's more like my brain has been hibernating.  A kind of on hold, or something.

It's pouring outside, a reminder that March is a terrible weather month.  I find it best to have low expectations of March weather.  Best to think of it as a winter month.  That way you are thrilled with a 50 degree sunny day.

But you know Spring is out there.  The sun is closer and I know sunny days are coming because you see there's this daffodil outside the door and it decided to bloom.