LYNN — Brickett Elementary School hosted its first Winter Festival event, where students were able to make festive crafts and sing holiday songs.
The school’s Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) put together the event, which filled the stage in the auditorium with nearly 20 Christmas trees that were donated by community members.
“It’s a great way for the kids to share the magic of everything that the PTO has put together,” Principal Shirley Albert-Benedict said.
PTO member Amy Butterworth said the idea for this holiday event came from the Trunk or Treat event that the school hosted around Halloween time, which was very successful.
“The kids had so much fun at the trunk or treat, so we wanted to do something to bring some holiday magic to the school,” Butterworth said.
The Winter Festival was held on Monday and Tuesday, with students visiting the auditorium with their classrooms for 20 minutes during their time slot.
“We had a lot of fun with it and the kids are just loving it,” Butterworth said.
The holiday festivities at the Winter Festival began with students decorating craft stockings, snowmen and snowflakes, before the lights went off and the Christmas trees lit up the room.
“It’s so awesome to hear the students ‘ooh and ahh’ when the lights go off, and how excited they look,” Albert-Benedict said.
The students were then able to join in on singing “Jingle Bells,” and given holiday cookies before returning to their classrooms.
“It’s a great experience for them to have something like this,” volunteer Crystal Sewell said. “They had a long year.”
The PTO began preparing for this event weeks ago, driving around to pick up donated decorations and getting supplies for the crafts.
Volunteers spent hours this past Friday setting up and decorating all of the artificial Christmas trees.
Butterworth said community members were awesome in making this event possible, through donating all of the decorations.
Butterworth extended thanks to community member Jan McLaughlin-Muirhead for her work in gathering donations and setting up the stage; Kimberly DelRe for putting together gift bags for kids to take home, and PTO member Judy Touch for creating a “living wall” of winter pine, with LED-lighted “Winter Festival” for the backdrop.
“It really did take a team of energetic and optimistic people to make the magic of the season come alive for the students,” Butterworth said. “It would be nice to highlight… the Brickett teachers and staff who stayed after on school days to help set everything up, and Principal Albert-Benedict for supporting the PTO and being enthusiastic about putting the students first and helping us create fun memories.”
With the success of this first Winter Festival, Butterworth said they plan on building on this in the future.
