By Maggie Fleming
Buffalo, NY – Shoes decorated and painted by students from Bennett Park Montessori Center -- and then transformed into flower pots -- lined the streets leading to the Underground Railroad site at the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church Friday.
The Shoe Pot Project was inspired by the gardens of the late community activist Rosa Gibson. It was a symbolic representation of the travels of freed slaves making their way to Canada on the Underground Railroad 150 years ago. Many of the shoes had a poem attached to them, written by a student.
Barbara Faust, a teacher at Bennett Park, talked about the significance of the project to the students.
"We talked to the children a lot about Rosa Gibson, and also about the Underground Railroad. I wanted them to really think about the shoes, and what shoes mean to people," Faust said.
The Shoe Pot Project ended a year long program at the school in collaboration with MUSE -- Musicians United for Superior Education -- called "We Are Buffalo."