Arizona students’ quilt honors Newtown victims

QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. — Students at an elementary school in the Queen Creek are honoring the victims of the Connecticut school shootings.

At Cortina Elementary School, Jamie Hunt’s fourth-grade class spent the majority of the past week making a quilt for the school district in Newtown, Conn.

“It has 26 stars on the front, and a patch in the middle that says ’26 stars will be shining brighter over Connecticut,’ ” Hunt said. “On the back, it has a nice label of where it came from, and an additional star because we have 27 students in our classroom.”

The quilt is the size of a twin bed. It was knitted by Hunt’s mother, and includes the names of every shooting victim.

Each student created a star with stencils and paint and markers, Hunt said and added pictures.

“I put a bird, and a cloud, with the moon and a teddy bear,” said one student, Bella.

“I put a birdhouse and two birds flying up to it,” said Devin. “It’s like people flying up to heaven.”

Hunt hopes the quilt will be displayed in Connecticut and bring comfort to the people of Newtown.

“We wanted to offer something that would be something that they could hold dear to their hearts,” said Hunt. “We don’t really want anything in return, we just wanted to do something good. We wanted to turn something that is bad into something good.”