P ’79 offers hurricane support

If you’ve walked past the Project ’79 office lately, you’ve probably wondered about the nets and objects hanging from the ceiling in the hallway and office itself. Well, the nets are more than just a simple art project—they represent Project ’79’s support for those affected by Hurricane Harvey, specifically Kingwood High School, located just north of Houston.
This is the high school that English Teacher Ms. Erin McKeon attended. “To see this is just very surreal,” she said. “The streets I grew up on and learned to drive on have people using boats to navigate through, which is really heartbreaking to see.”
Art Teacher Mr. Roy Chambers proposed creating a visual representation of the destruction. When describing the damage to Kingwood High he said, “The school campus looked like a swimming pool or a lake.”
The students and staff members each brought in an object that they had a personal connection with in order to show how the hurricane victims had lost irreplaceable objects that meant a lot to them.
As History Teacher and Project ’79 Coordinator Ms. Jacqueline Spring said, “These are memories, these are attached to their lives.”
Senior JT Binkowitz, who is a Project ’79 participant and co-vice president of the Community Service Club, donated a soccer ball. “I have had it for at least six years now and it is easily my favorite soccer ball on the planet,” he said. “It means a lot.”
Project ’79 and the Community Service Club hope to collaborate in assisting Kingwood High. The groups are trying to determine just what the school’s needs are. The people in Texas have lost so much, and that’s still being tallied up.
“Sometimes, things are more than just things,” McKeon said.