Claypool Celebrates School Year With Balloon Launch
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
CLAYPOOL – Nearly 500 balloons were launched Friday afternoon by Claypool Elementary School students and staff. The balloon launch was part of a PTO fundraiser for the school and a celebration of the school’s first year of being reopened, renovated and improved. Until this school year, Claypool had been closed since 2004. People from the communities in the southern part of the Warsaw School District paid different amounts for different colored balloons, with the gold balloons being for those who contributed larger amounts of money to the school. Each balloon had a tag on it with a number that corresponds to a Claypool student. If someone finds a balloon and sends it back to the school, the location where the balloon was found will be marked on a map at the front of the school with the student’s name. Before the balloon launch, Principal Melissa Rees talked about how the launch was part of a school celebration. Not every student gets to be part of a new school, but Claypool students were lucky this year. “This, to me, has been the coolest year ever,” Rees said. She said the celebration was for everything the school has done together this year. Guest speaker was Darci Zolman, Kosciusko County Soil & Water Conservation District director. “When I first heard about your balloon launch from my daughter and grandchildren, the first question I asked was if the balloons were biodegradable,” Zolman said. “The answer to that question was important to me.” Balloons that are not biodegradable, she said, causes environmental problems, so she was glad the school chose balloons which are biodegradable. She also talked about the connections in the world and how everything on the planet is interconnected. The sun warms the soil. When the soil gets warm, it makes plants grow. Plants provide oxygen to animals and people to breathe, and animals drink water. All of the resources need shelter and protection, she told the students.“We have a lot of connections in our environment. Everything depends on something else to survive. It’s important to know nothing can stand alone,” Zolman said. Students were then called by grade and class to get their balloons. Also part of the celebration, Claypool sixth-graders each year will plant flowers in Claypool and Silver Lake to commemorate the day. This year, the sixth-graders will plan flowers along CR 700S from the stop sign near the school to the first open sidewalk in Claypool.
