Middle school students from Collegedale Academy (formerly known as Collegedale Adventist Middle School) used their efforts and talents to leave a legacy at the Collegedale Post Office.
Nearing the end of the of the 2018-19 school year, the seventh-grade class presented a gift to the Collegedale Post office that included elements from their math and art classes which, in the end, served as community service.
“Each year in math, our students are assigned a math project to create a replica of an object that is scaled up or down in accurate proportional scale,” said Collegedale Academy seventh-grade math teacher Selena Trott.
“We worked on this project as group to give an example to that assignment.”
The group replica is a framed model of the United States of America with each state covered with previously used postage stamps.
Mat board was used to create the shape of each state where the postage stamps neatly cover them. Joe LaCom from Southern Adventist University’s School of Visual Art and Design contributed to the community project by laser cutting the mat board into the shape of each state.
The students trimmed hundreds of stamps and then glued them to each state’s mat board.
The used postage stamps were donated by the Collegedale Church of Seventh-day Adventists by school parents.
The states were placed in their proper location with a yarn outline used to define each boarder. Each state has one type of stamp covering it with the ocean/background filled with a consistent USA stamp.
“We painstakingly sorted them, chose a consistent stamp design to cover the individual states, trimmed them to fit, and neatly attached them to cover each state,” says seventh grade student Bryn Dickinson.
Once everything was in placed the artwork was shellacked and framed, ready to present.
When the project was completed, the final artwork was donated to the Collegedale Post Office. The Collegedale Post Master Justin Taylor said he was so happy to receive the art work. Mr. Taylor affirmed the students in their efforts and encouraged them to continue serving their community now and into the future. Regional Director Steve Coleman attended the presentation, along with Staci Workman, representative from the Signal Mountain post office.
“It’s our intention to continue building our stamp filled replicas, both as an educational opportunity and as a contribution to our community,” says Ms. Trott. “We have several area post offices we’d like to share this with, and we’ll branch further outside of our local community as time goes on.”
Ms. Trott has left this legacy in communities where she’s previously taught. There are similar pieces of art hanging in the Williston, Vt. and South Lancaster, Ma. post offices. Each have hung for 20 and 15 years respectively.