HUDSON – Tile by tile, the Forest Avenue Elementary School community has pieced together a mosaic memorial to remember a teacher who passed away following a crash in 2020.
Erin MacKay, who was a first-grade teacher at Forest Avenue and Templeton resident, was driving in Fitchburg when a tire crashed through her windshield, state police said at the time.
Forest Avenue Elementary School Principal David Champigny presented a video of the project to the School Committee during a meeting Oct. 25.
“It’s a beautiful piece of art that is a tribute to someone who was an amazing teacher, an amazing mother, and colleague,” he said.
The memorial is “the first thing you see” when entering Forest Avenue.
The video, which featured artist that helped create the memorial, Josh Winer, detailed the process of making a mosaic and how the art form can be used to honor someone.
“Creating something beautiful is a helpful way to process some of the feelings of loss and also celebrating the person who is special to the community,” Winer said.
With the help of MacKay’s students, Winer created a drawing of a teacher reading to her class surrounded by butterflies.
Winer said the butterflies were inspired by words of encouragement MacKay frequently said to her students – “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
He explained, “The idea is that she really wanted to encourage individual students to do their best and to grow and to move forward in their lives. She was a very special teacher in that way.”
After Winer finished the drawing and laid out the tiles, Forest Avenue students, faculty and members of the MacKay family participated in the mosaic-making process.
The project took two weeks to finish and served as a “complete learning experience” for the students, Winer said.
“The kids and their parents have the experience of building something that I think they will remember for a good long time,” he said.
School Committee Chair Michele Tousignant Dufour called the memorial “a beautiful memory” of MacKay that brings “warm memories” to the Forest Avenue community.
“It’s a reminder that sometimes, out of very sad circumstances, we can come together as a community and become stronger,” Tousignant Dufour said.
