Reed Intermediate School Students Bag Light For Relay For Life

By Eliza Hallabeck

Within one week, Reed Intermediate School students worked on luminarias at home and in school during their spare time, and for the past week their projects were on display in the school’s cafeteria for other students to vote on to raise money for this year’s Relay For Life. Each vote cost $1, and the proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

According to Kathy Nostrand, a secretary at Reed and the co-chair of sales for Relay For Life, the money raised through the school’s luminaria project this year far surpassed last year’s effort, which made around $100; this year more than $400 was raised.

This is the sixth year Relay For Life will be taking place in Newtown, but it is the third year that sixth grade students have been designing their own luminarias for the occasion. Luminarias are white paper bags that have sand and candles in them, and the sixth graders have been leaving their own personal mark on them.

The winners of the Relay For Life Luminary Art Contest at Reed were Sophia Chiravelli, first place; Abbi Winters, second place; Mary Kate Sandler, third place; Jesse Sailer, fourth place; and Jessica Keller, fifth place.

“This year the kids took it to a whole other level,” Ms Nostrand said.

Like last year, the project to create luminarias was open only to sixth grade students, because, Ms Nostrand said, it gives students in the fifth grade a chance to look forward to it the following year.

Sixth grade student Kirsten Hill was volunteering with other students on Friday in the cafeteria to watch and make sure students were voting for the luminarias correctly.

“We’re making sure that no one takes out the money and that they donate,” Kirsten said.

Kirsten also created a luminaria herself this year. Her decorated paper bag included the phrases, “Run a mile to see someone smile,” “Find a cure,” and “Relay For Life.”

Ms Nostrand said health teacher Michelle Failla really promoted the project this year, and, like last year, had craft necessities ready in the health rooms for the students to create luminaries there.

Laura Warren, the luminaria chair for Relay For Life in Newtown, was also at the school on Friday. She said last year the students at Reed Intermediate School were given homework passes for creating a luminary, but not this year.

“This year,” she said, “everyone did it out of the goodness of their heart.”

This year’s Relay For Life will be held June 13-14 at Fairfield Hills. The luminarias created by the sixth grade students will be used to help light up the walk loop and to spell out the word “Hope.”