May 24, 2021 by Mary Ellen Carlisle
The 2021 Button design winner is Brooke Cashman from Foster School! Brooke’s design truly represented so many people and occupations, who kept all of us safe and fed during the heart of the 2020 pandemic! The Parade Committee thought her design was perfect for this year's theme, Heroes Among Us.
The Committee’s instructions explained that the theme focused on front line workers, but being very inclusive with not only doctors and nurses, but so many others: warehouse workers, bank tellers, custodial staff, grocery workers, truck drivers, mail and package carriers, shop owners, restaurant employees, care givers, teachers, home healthcare, public works, emergency response personnel, military, safety workers, nursing home staff, undertakers, and scientists and researchers, to name many livelihoods that helped everyone through so many months of home quarantine.
The night of judging was the Committee’s first in-person meeting in over a year so it was celebratory for many reasons. We had approximately 135 designs submitted and 10 masked committee members judging in a large banquet room at Raffael’s at the South Shore Country Club. Thank you Elio Ricci, Frank Ricci, and Terese Panetta for creating a wide open space for us to safely spread out the designs (2 or 3 per large round table) for our judging.
This year, we had some very nice designs from every school, it was really nice to see how each and every student embraced this year's theme, certainly with good reason. Brooke captured the theme with her illustration of a dozen symbols representing many heroes and occupations. Her graphics were crisp and clear, the theme was clearly presented, her choice of colors were pleasing and the overall button was eye catching. Another symbolic detail she included were two hands embracing, illustrating unity during these unprecedented times. We hope you like the button as much as we do, and pick up a few at your local shops for a generous donation.
Although, there was only one button design winner, we wanted to mention other noteworthy designs created by Katie Post from South Elementary, Lexie Grimm from PRS, and Celia Thayer from Foster. East and St Pauls schools also created noteworthy illustrations, which the committee discussed.
In past years, some of Hingham's Parade themes were more abstract and at times challenging for 5th graders, but this year's theme, Heroes Among Us, was relatable through personal experience during the pandemic. Therefore, it was interesting to see many nice designs making it very challenging to reduce the pool of candidates to the top few contenders. In the end, Brooke's design checked off all the boxes: overall size of the design, color and clarity of the design, theme correctly written in the button space, easy to read, and overall eye catching.
