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Mural honors Danbury High School seniors
DANBURY — The Class of 2021 spent most of its senior year at home, not at Danbury High School.
But an art project is letting them leave their mark — literally — on the campus.
A new mural is being painted at the high school that honors the Class of
2021. The students will be able to leave their painted handprints on the wall, too.
“We want them to know we didn’t forget about them and you’ve left your impression on all of us,” said Dana O'Rourke, president of the Danbury High School Parent Teacher Organization, which is in charge of the mural.
Joe Di Guiseppi, an art teacher at Westside Middle School, and students from the National Honors Society volunteered to paint the mural on Saturday. Parents had already volunteered to paint blue the full wall near the Beckerle parking lot and the baseball fields.
The mural includes a blue, orange and white Hatter’s logo and the message “21 & DONE, Class of 2021.”
“It looks great,” O’Rourke said. There’s plenty of space on the wall for murals to be created for the future graduating classes, O’Rourke said. The PTO was inspired by a similar project at New Fairfield High School, she said.
She expects students to be able to sign up for a time to paint their hand print on the wall. Parent volunteers will monitor for social distancing, she said.
This is just one activity the PTO has had for the seniors this year.
All seniors have gotten a monthly treat. The first one was bubble gum in a baggy with the message, “Let’s make
2021 pop,” O’Rourke said. Last month was cookies because “the class of 2021 is a smart cookie,” she said.
The organization started an “adopt a senior” program where community members — largely parents and school staff — “adopt” a member of the Class of 2021 and give him or her a gift every month. Seniors will find out who their adopter is at the end of the year, O’Rourke said.
More than 200 students are participating, but about double that number signed up to adopt seniors, so almost everyone has two adopters, she said.
The PTO has been successful at fundraising throughout the pandemic by selling masks and signs honoring last year and this year’s graduates.
“It’s very overwhelming,” O’Rourke said. “The response from the community has just been amazing.”
O’Rourke has had three kids go through the Danbury schools, with her middle child graduating last year and her youngest son graduating this year, so she knows how challenging COVID has been on students.
“It’s tough because they don’t get to see their friends as often as they could,” she said. “They’re split into cohorts, but right now as a family, we understand that’s how it has to be done.”