Thursday, December 3, 2009

Mrs. Fawley Helps Decorate White House

Incredibles Civics teacher Mrs. Fawley went to Washington D.C. over the Thanksgiving weekend to help decorate the White House for Christmas.

Before her trip, in an interview with the JFHMS student news service The Hawk Eye, Mrs. Fawley said that it was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity.

But The Hawk Eye wasn't the only news outlet keeping a watch on Mrs. Fawley:

***

People: The first of 17 White House holiday parties was held Tuesday night, for the 92 volunteers who strung lights and hung ornaments. Mrs. Obama herself, who teased the volunteers about making a lot of partying noise, only popped down for a minute.

"She said the girls were upstairs doing homework and she couldn’t stay," said volunteer Kim Fawley, a schoolteacher from Broadway, Va.

***

CNN: Kim Fawley, a schoolteacher in Virginia who volunteered her time to help decorate, said she was impressed by the handmade ornaments, which include the Statue of Liberty, the Boston Celtics, Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo and the DuSable Museum of African American History.

"They're just beautiful. The love and the care that they took to put them together is obvious when you hold them in your hands," Fawley said.

The video:



***

Washington Spaces:





















Kim Fawley, one of the many volunteers who did a beautiful job of helping to decorate the White House, shared secrets about decorating the White House Christmas tree, which is in the Blue Room
.

“This room was filled with boxes, scaffolding and cherry pickers,” said Kim Fawley, a volunteer, who is a 7th grade civics teacher in Broadway, VA, in the Shenandoah Valley. “We started last Friday taking the ornaments out of the wrappers and putting on the wire hangers.” She explained that in addition to the beautiful hand-decorated ornaments - some were decoupaged, some painted or adorned in other ways - gold Christmas balls were hung towards the inside of the tree and clear glass balls were hung closer to the outside so they’d reflect the low-energy lights on the tree. This year’s theme was reflected on blue ribbons tied to the ornaments. Reflect, Rejoice, Renew was hand- or machine-stitched by Girl Scouts onto the blue ribbons, Fawley said.

It looked like one giant gold ribbon crowned the tree, but it’s really four gold bows tied at the top. And what appeared to be one continuous golden ribbon circling the tree is actually 6-foot sections of ribbon, she shared.

***

Politico 44: Kim Fawley of Broadway, Va., took off several days of teaching seventh grade to help adorn the 18 ½-foot Douglas fir in the Blue Room along with about 30 other volunteers.

“I have a very, very nice principal,” she said.