Recently, students at the Upper School Campus have been making paper cranes for an upcoming project envisioned by Mrs. Kim Finch, Collierville Campus Chaplain and Middle School Counselor.

Mrs. Finch has been wanting to honor the Agape Chapel and, “to return that space to a more reverent space [and] something that everyone who’s a student at St. George’s could participate in.” After some time and consideration, Mrs. Finch was able to decide on an idea that would make a wonderful addition to the Agape Chapel, paper cranes.

The final proposal was for an art installation to be hung in the chapel made entirely of paper cranes that were constructed by fellow students, teachers, and faculty members. Mrs. Finch jokes that she probably made at least a dozen cranes herself.

Mrs. Finch credits faculty members such as middle school art teacher Katy Simmons-Carroll and curriculum integrationist Kara Vaughn for helping bring the paper crane art installation idea to life. All three team members are slowly working towards finally installing the piece sometime during October, before the 20th anniversary of the Upper School Campus.

But what do these paper cranes mean? These beautiful and delicate origami figures are symbols of hope and peace worldwide—something that the three creators of the project wish to convey through the art piece.

When asked what the paper cranes represent to the SGIS community, Mrs. Vaughn said that this was a take-off back into normalcy.

“The hope is that they can represent kind of this taking off again, for lack of better words… It’s just kind of that fusing life again into the space,” she said.

Mrs. Vaughn is a newcomer to the St. George’s community, as she just recently joined last year. She helped Mrs. Finch with the creation process by brainstorming and looking at Instagram/Pinterest boards of paper cranes for inspiration. During this process, Mrs. Simmons-Carroll is devising a plan to hang and structure this massive piece by mainly using clear monofilament string, which is what is used for fishing lines in rods.

By undertaking this major project Mrs. Finch’s ultimate goal “is to have everyone represented, that when they look up they can, first of all see themselves there.”