Mrs. Donna Marie Burden, an art teacher from Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville, Indiana has adopted 25 Million Stitches as part of an art/religion(civics) curriculum (100 panels) for 5 different levels of classes and courses. Students discuss topics ranging from: how the arts can help inspire others to help, how art raises awareness of the Refugee crisis, and how they can apply the knowledge they gained to their artwork (panel design). The students at Our Lady of Providence also shared the project at a number of elementary school events to use the project as an opportunity to teach about refugees. Ms. Burden says, “My goal at our school is that EVERYONE (about 400 students) will stitch on a panel before we send them all back! We are also going to take panels with us to community events and invite people to stitch with us as we tell them about the collaboration.”
Ms. Burden continues to share the project: She recently shared the project with her daughter's girl scout troop. To make the stitching more approachable, she cut one panel into smaller squares. Then she will put individual panels back together to make a whole 15inch by 35inch panel. ( by the way, if anyone else wants to engage younger people with smaller panels, feel free to use sewing machine to recombine the panels) She also launched a school-wide challenge to try to get as many kids stitching at the Our Lady of Providence High School, even offering her time to supervise remediation/study sessions in the mornings.