Butterfly Project to Butterfly Monument

It was the first day in January 1998, the day before school was to begin for the spring semester, when our upper school faculty gathered along with other teachers from private and public schools in our area.

The purpose of the meeting was to teach these educators how to teach the Holocaust. Our state, as well as a number of publishers, has prepared materials of this same subject but geared toward high school students. We were teaching this in language arts to the fifth-graders.

As the participants were arriving, each person got a manila folder decorated with a colorful butterfly sticker. Using a variety of materials including a pamphlet put out by the Council on Social Studies Teaching, I began to introduce various aspects of the Holocaust.

About halfway through my materials, the subject turned to the numbers that were murdered and otherwise lost. They spoke of the 1.3 million children killed in the Holocaust. The question then became, “How do we show what that number means?”

Since I was an “A-V” teacher, I said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could gather 1.3 million something and display them?”

At that point, I saw the butterfly stickers on the folders – and so the project began to form. Our paper butterflies fluttered, in my mind’s eye, on the empty lot next to the school, and the idea took hold. The attendees all seemed positive with this idea.

The next day, the display idea got more positive backing from my students. By this time, it was determined that the butterflies were to be paper. Paper was chosen since it was inexpensive and easy to find.

The class was enthusiastic but soon realized our small school could not color and cut out such a large number of butterflies. We needed help!

With a notice in our local Myrtle Beach Sun News and the help of the paper’s religion reporter, Johanna Wilson, we let the town know about the display. Ms. Wilson was with us every step of the way, and more communities and more newspaper notices followed.

“Time for Kids,” a classroom newspaper, gave the butterfly project a boost with pictures as well as including a page with two butterfly patterns that could be reproduced.

The word of our plan went from teacher to teacher, newspaper to radio talk shows, to any place where people could gather to make butterflies. And so the news rolled across America.

The special bits of paper came back to our school, a few at first, then the flood. We had a deadline for them to arrive at the beginning of April to give us time to mount the butterflies for the display and time to count them as they came in.

Even the U.S. Postal Service came to our aid as the number of envelopes, bags and boxes, stuffed with paper butterflies increased. Our postman delivered the school’s regular mail and then a second truck with the butterflies.

People came to volunteer to mount them on Popsicle sticks, and others were stapled to hundreds of yards of material donated by a manufacturer in Conway.

Putting the butterflies out, the week before April 22, 1998, we had help and ideas from a local construction company, the city of Myrtle Beach, the whole school, my husband Hugo Schiller and others.

Opening day, Thursday, April 22, 1998, was one of alternating rain and sunshine. It was decided to keep the display up until Monday, April 26.

The indoor display had a lot of special butterflies, such as two very large butterflies about 20 inches across. One was made by women from our Indian community, covered with seeds. And another large one was a jigsaw puzzle put together by my daughter and her youngest child.

Each butterfly was to represent the life and death of one child. There were no headstones for any of these children. My students accepted the display as the headstones for our lost children. Then one of my students, Becky, explained that butterflies have short lives just as the children murdered in the Holocaust.

The days following the Butterfly display involved clean up as our butterflies were “flying” all over town. In the school, we had to clear all the walls and windows. Some of the butterflies were packed away and stored for future use.

When the butterflies had originally arrived, the students retrieved the return addresses and as an important lesson, thank you notes were written to each contributor of the Butterfly project. A dedicated group of adults came to help stuff the “thank you” notes with a tiny butterfly. In the end, we sent thank you notes to over 3000 locations.

Years later, when Joy Glunt of Myrtle Beach began the process of fundraising, designing and erecting a memorial, it seemed fitting that the focus would be the children of the Holocaust and the butterfly was the logical symbol of “short lives” but everlasting beautiful memories.

The Memorial was dedicated in May 1, 2016. It is located at 1011 Crabtree Lane, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577.