West End Elementary students transformed basic pallets into unique gifts this week.
About 40 pallets used during this summer’s flood relief efforts were delivered to the sixth-grade students by Scott Thompson so the group could craft them into Christmas trees to take home as gifts.
Assisted by eighth-grade students in George McDonald’s wood shop class, sixth graders had the opportunity to use power tools to construct their Christmas trees.
Sixth-grade teacher Kim McDonald said she came up with the idea to put the discarded pallets to good use.
“I was thinking about a project we could do with all the pallets because I knew there would be an excessive amount,” she said.
After searching Pinterest, the popular ideas website, she knew transforming the pallets in Christmas trees would be the way to go.
“The trees are special beyond the kids making them,” she said. “A lot of the kids were affected by the flood or helped sandbag this summer. Using these pallets meant a lot to them.”
Kim McDonald asked her husband, George McDonald, if his eighth-grade wood shop class would help and said she later found out he was skeptical at first.
“But then I found out he said (the trees) turned out really nice,” she said.
And the kids loved them, too.
“They didn’t want to leave the wood shop class,” Kim McDonald said. “They are really proud of what they’ve made...It kind of commemorates the flood this summer and shows out of difficult things, comes good things.”
