The display is titled “What You Do Matters.”
What started as a presentation by Dr. Jerry Ehrlich, a former pediatrician from Cherry Hill who volunteered for Doctors Without Borders in 2004 in Darfur, Sudan, to Seneca High School’s “Literature of the Holocaust” class grew into a class project and ultimately a permanent, living display. At the end of Dr. Ehrlich’s presentation in January, he mentioned that some of the artwork that he had children draw depicting their daily lives during the genocide in Darfur was sitting in a box in his basement. The students thought the artwork should be displayed as a reminder of the effects of hate. Junior Kayla Handt said about the display, “The artwork needs to be displayed to show others what is actually happening around the world. We are all connected in some way, and we need to be a part of the solution in preventing genocide.” Junior Autumn Wells added, “This display is a reminder for all of us about the effects of hate.”
Dr. Ehrlich offered to donate some of the children’s work to Seneca High School, and the students decided to create a display titled, “What You Do Matters.” The living display is housed in Seneca’s media center where the artwork will rotate on a quarterly basis. The display will also grow with subsequent “No Place for Hate” projects that future classes will create under the same theme.
Mr. Sean Cassel, English teacher at Seneca, presented Dr. Ehrlich with a duplicate plaque like the one in the display. Cassel said, “It’s important that we show our students the effects of hate, as well as the impact that serving others can have on a local and global community.”
