It hasn’t been an easy year for students and staff at Boreal French Immersion.
In the wake of last month's devastating shootings that claimed four innocent lives, including two young children who attended Boreal, a pair of Grade 8 students are helping their school – and their community – heal thanks to their powerful artistic expressions of peace.
Mia Billingsley and Anna Zepeda earned first and second place honours respectively in the Algoma District School Board for this year’s Peace Poster Contest. Facilitated by the Lions Club of Sault Ste. Marie, the initiative provides children with the opportunity to express their visions of peace and inspire others through art and creativity.
This was the first year that students from Boreal won the contest.
“I was really excited when I found out,” Billingsley said. “I wasn’t expecting it at all.”
“I’m really happy with it,” Zepeda added. “I had a lot of fun with it.”
Billingsley not only won first place in the ADSB, but her art also earned top honours at the district level, which represents 50 clubs in northern Ontario. Her piece will now move on to the provincial stage for judging.
“I knew we had a winner when I saw Mia’s,” said Lions Club member Kim Carter. “I thought, ‘wow, this is really amazing.’ We were looking for originality, artistic merit, and expression of the theme, and both girls certainly had all of that.”
The theme for this year’s contest was “Dare to Dream: Bringing Peace to the World, One Child at a Time.”
Speaking to SooToday on the one-month anniversary of October's tragic shootings, Boreal principal Carrie Vaz says the recognition by the Lions Club comes at an incredibly important time.
“We’re healing,” she said. “It’s a process, but we’re healing. This is something we can celebrate, and we’re very proud of these girls. They were clearly very thoughtful about what they included in some of the symbols.”
“It’s great for our school community to be able to have that opportunity for our students to express themselves artistically and think about what brings them peace,” she added. “I know it came at a time when our community was really trying to find peace.”
The principal also credited Amy Chojnowski, the school’s art teacher, for providing her students with a creative and accepting space.
“She really took off with it,” Vaz said. “She really made sure that students had that outlet to express themselves, and we were really grateful to her for that.”
Looking forward to attending St. Mary’s College next year, ADSB’s top achievers in the peace contest said they completed their art in just two days. Billingsley spent 26 hours over that span perfecting hers.
“I definitely wanted to fill the page and have lots of fun colours,” she said. “I did mandala art around the outside to fill it up. Around the flags, I had people holding hands and being brought together. It’s nice to have a final piece.”
“For me, peace means bringing people together,” she added. “It can also mean finding peace in yourself.”
Meanwhile, a pair of students at St. Paul Catholic School were also recognized by the Lions Club for this year’s Peace Poster Contest.
Issac Barnes and Gabrielle Mara-Asian earned first and second place honours respectively for their submissions in the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board.
“Their pieces were beautiful as well,” Carter said. “The kids really impressed us this year.”