Queens Students Create Patriotic, Heartfelt Display Outside School For Memorial Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Some kids in Queens are working on a group project full of gratitude and hope.
One small table at home might as well be an entire schoolhouse for 10-year-old Fallon O'Brien and her 7-year-old brother, Desmond.
It's where they learn and create.
The siblings are working on their pieces of a Memorial Day display outside their shuttered school.
Red, white and blue construction paper and ribbons have been tied to a chain-link fence outside Holy Trinity Catholic Academy in the shape of a heart, along with American flags and other patriotic decorations.
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The O'Brien family made a rare field trip back to their beloved school building to add what they made.
"I like to bring it and to tie it so then we could see all my friends, what they wrote, and to see the school again," Fallon told CBS2's Dave Carlin.
That her kids are so engaged and excited by this makes mother Bridget O'Brien proud and grateful their lives include caring teachers.
There will be no parade or school assembly, but the right feeling is not lost.
"I think that this teaches kids no matter what you're going through, even though it might be a dark day for you, there's people who've had darker days that have fallen for our country and we can still honor them in a special way even if we can't all come together," O'Brien said.
The mundane section of chain link has been transformed into a thing of beauty and a symbol of togetherness.
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"There is a way of uniting even during this uncertain times. It also teaches them that we should also continue our traditions and our tributes," teacher Joanne Marino said.
People wait patiently to the side, social distancing, and when it's their turn to get in close and fill in the heart, it's their own hearts that feel full.
