St. Jude School works to raise awareness of child abuse

St. Jude Thaddeus School's junior high students were out Wednesday planting blue pinwheels by the school.

"We are putting pinwheels up to support child abuse awareness," seventh grade student Kaylee Vaughn said.

Seventh and eighth grade students were out in the morning to put pinwheels in the front of the school. The school has 30 junior high students.

Teacher Carly Brunk supervised half of the sixth and seventh grade students Wednesday afternoon while they put out the pinwheels.

Brunk said the school is doing the project for awareness and service to the community. She said she has not done this project before, however, she is familiar with Court Appointed Special Advocates which is sponsoring the project. 

Brunk said the teachers had given an introduction to what the pinwheels symbolized before the project began.

"When it was brought to us by Deacon Tim (Maroney) as a possible service project, I knew that we needed to do this. We needed to participate. We have been waiting for weather. The weather has not cooperated," Brunk said. "From what I understand, the state of Montana is observing Blue Sunday this Sunday. So we decided, who knows how long they'll stay, so we will just do it this week and then it will extend into Blue Sunday."

The students meticulously used a yard stick to make sure the pinwheels were evenly spaced along the sidewalk. They also used a screwdriver that was marked for depth to pre-make the holes to place the pinwheels in the ground. 

"Strengthening families is what we do. We're a family," Brunk said.