In partnership with the Germany-based Friendship Without Boundaries Foundation, the Rotary Club of Homer Downtown sponsors a project to plant seeds of peace in children so they will promote peace and friendship throughout their lives. Working with six lower Kenai Peninsula schools, Rotary volunteers have been helping students paint banners, called Flags of Peace, exploring the idea of peace and friendship.

Rotary is providing all the materials to complete the project, with the help of Kate Mitchell at NOMAR, Rotarian Jan O’Meara wrote in an press release. Some of the banners will be displayed during the Winter Carnival parade in February, after which they will be hung in the Homer High School Commons for a time. Eventually, they will be taken to Germany for display with other banners created in schools in different countries.

The schools participating in this project are McNeil Canyon Elementary, West Homer Elementary, Big Fireweed, Little Fireweed, Paul Banks Elementary, and Chapman Elementary. O’Meara said she expects children to make nearly 1,000 banners.

“Homer’s painted banners will be gathered with banners in Germany, Italy, Sweden, other United States, France, and other countries to make a miles long banner,” Rotarian Pat Wise wrote in a press release. “Banners will be exchanged from school to school in other countries. Our students are practicing that there are no boundaries when there is true friendship.”