Patterson’s ‘Pinwheel for Peace’

Eric Gross Thanks to the cooperation of the Patterson Fire Department, Courier senior reporter and photographer Eric Gross was raised to the top of the department’s 100-foot tower ladder truck so the pinwheels could be observed from high in the sky. Six hundred seventy five boys and girls enrolled at the Matthew Paterson Elementary School in Patterson joined millions of other children around the globe last Friday by participating in an international art project—Pinwheels for Peace.

The project was begun in 2005 by two art instructors from Florida as a way for students to express their feelings relating to world peace.

During that first year, children in more than 1,350 locations throughout the world spun pinwheels. This year an estimated 2.5 million pinwheels were spinning in over 3,000 locations across America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Africa, the Middle East, and South America.

Locally, art teachers Margi Picciano at the Paterson School, Krista Bernardi at Kent Primary School, and Rachel Berry at Kent Elementary School coordinated the project.

The pinwheels were created in all shapes and colors and in Patterson were “planted” in a large circle on the soccer field at the school along South Street.

—Eric Gross