Green Valley Elementary Welcomes Back Sandy Hook

It was an easy activity to help and show support for an extremely hard transition, which starts today.

Green Valley Elementary School students from Danville made snowflakes over the holiday break to send to Newtown, Conn.

The snowflakes are being used to make the first day back for Sandy Hook students at their new school a little bit more festive on Thursday, as snowflakes have been sent in from around the country.

Last month, the Green Valley PTA setup a "snowflake box" to shipped off to Sandy Hook and told parents about it through an email.

Along with the snowflakes, 41 Green Valley students also posed for a photo, shot by professional photographer Sherman Chu, standing around the United States with their snowflakes connecting Danville to Newtown.

"I know I can speak for a lot of parents, we felt like helping but didn't know how," said Chu, who is the father of two of the girls who helped raise money for wounded Marines over the summer. "When I received this email (from the Green Valley PTA) I just thought how cool would it be to use the map that is painted at the Green Valley playground as a back drop for this photo."

Chu's original idea for the photo was to have 26 children, representing the 26 people who were killed in last month's tragedy, hold their their snowflake and stand between Danville and Newtown on the map.

But, with more than 40 students expressing interest in participating, Chu changed his idea slightly, and had the students stand around the map instead.

"I hope this photo represents our children in a way that we can all be proud of and it brings some sort of joy to the children of Sandy Hook to see it," Chu said.

That to a donation from Chu's photo lab, he is sending a 16x20 print of the photo to Sandy Hook.

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