If you’re driving by Gwin Oaks Elementary School in Lawrenceville, you may notice thousands of white flags. Actually, it’s TEN thousand white flags, and it’s there as a memorial to all those who have lost their lives to COVID in the state of Georgia.
Craig Barlow, Principal of Gwin Oaks Elementary School in Lawrenceville, says the idea was a great way to get students to see what ten thousand actually looks like, as well as honor those who died. “We saw an article in the paper about people who had memorialized or honored people around the country who had died by using little white flags and we thought that’s what we need to do at our school to give our students a chance to be a part of something like this,” says Barlow.
Barlow added that it was troubling to realize how many of those had died alone, sometimes without even being able to have a funeral due to the pandemic. “We wanted to give our students if they had any relatives or any friends that they knew a time to honor them, a time to remember them,” he said.
It took a team of PTO, faculty and staff to make the memorial happen and they ordered 10,000 flags. “That’s a miraculous thing that so many people have died in just our state. This is our chance for our students to see that number, to see what that looks like. We have a thousand students. That’s over ten times the number of students that even attend our school.” As of Thursday, January 14, the COVID death count is now at 10,721.
The students were the ones to set out the flags. Each student had 16 flags to place. They were organized in groups and the front area of the school was sectioned off. Even students who are learning from home can participate, by joining in at any time. “They can come with their family and do their own private ceremony alone,” says Bowman.
Students had a chance to personalize the experience by writing the name of a family member or friend who had passed from COVID. Barlow says it was a special way to help each student honor someone they love. “The ones who have relatives or friends who have died, they wrote their names on these flags. Some flags will have names and some will be nameless – the people we don’t know, that we haven’t heard of, but it’ll still be a way to honor them and remember them.”
The memorial will be up for several weeks, allowing plenty of time for the community to have a chance to experience the display.
