Kimberly Mask, recently promoted from eighth grade at Desert Wind Middle School, designed the memorial at Maricopa Veterans Center. Submitted photo

During the flag raising ceremony at the Maricopa Veteran’s Center on Monday (Memorial Day), the Desert Wind Middle School Blended Learning Memorial created by Shannon Hull’s eighth-grade social studies class was dedicated.

Hull’s class began the process of designing this memorial after an October visit from Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) member Clarence “Golde” Golden. Golden said he had a project for the students, to take an existing wall and create something for the Veteran’s Center.

In a few weeks, each student had designed a memorial. The chosen design came from eighth grade student Kimberly Mask. Kimberly envisioned the poem “In Flanders Fields” written on the wall surrounded by red poppies and framed on the ground in brick. Hull started a GoFundMe.com page to raise money to create Kim’s vision. A total of $730.40 was raised and utilized on this lasting memorial for the Maricopa community.

The project finally came to fruition on Memorial Day when the memorial was presented by Mike Kemery of the VFW to the crowd at the flag-raising at the Maricopa Veteran’s Center.

Kimberly is an honors student, an avid artist and an asset to our city and our schools. She will begin her studies at Maricopa High School this fall, being accepted into the AP Art class, which is a rarity among freshmen.

Hull’s class has a long-standing relationship with members of the VFW — they regularly come in to speak with Desert Wind Blended Learning students throughout the year, and the class just recently had a clean-up and landscaping day at the Veteran’s Center. The Desert Wind Middle School Blended Learning students’ next goal for the Center is to bring in gravel and a few new trees to help further beautify the grounds of the Veteran’s Center.