Constitution Week September 17-23rd

                   Carol Hart and Diane Price, co-chairs for the Constitution Week Committee at Supply Elementary School

DAR celebrates the United States Constitution!

Did you remember that our Constitution was signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787?  Deputies were sent to the Constitutional Convention from each state except Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  The average age of these men was about 44.  The oldest was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, then 81; and the youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, 26.  They were lawyers, soldiers, planters, educators, ministers, physicians, financiers, and merchants. Forty of them had been members of the Continental Congress. George Washington presided over the Convention, and the Constitution was drafted in fewer than one hundred working days despite the serious conflicts that arose concerning representation by small and large states.

Our Constitution states our rights and protections, and prescribes government function, as in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.  The Constitution has been amended, and ten of those are the Bill of Rights.  How valuable a document is this Constitution!

Our Constitution Committee is busily at work to celebrate Constitution Week, Sept. 17-23, and all of September as Constitution Month.  We visit area elementary schools to decorate a bulletin board with posters about the Constitution & lots of red, white, & blue!  We give teaching materials to the 5th Grade Social Studies teachers.  We decorate colorful bulletin boards to illustrate facts of the Constitution at area libraries.  We ask the mayors of each town to proclaim “Constitution Week” and publicize that.  We encourage the Ringing of Bells at 4 pm on Sept. 17 to commemorate the 236th anniversary of the signing.

We started visiting the schools early this year.  This photo shows Carol Hart and Diane Price, Co-Chairs, next to a bulletin board they created at Supply Elementary School.

We would like to have more members in this committee, as there are several functions to be covered.  The schools love to see us arrive with our colorful materials.  Wouldn’t you like to be part of the Constitution Committee, helping to bring awareness to others in the community about our U.S. Constitution?

Give Carol or Diane a call or see them at the chapter meeting!

Thanks to Portia Bellamy, center, for volunteering to help with the bulletin board at Jessie Mae Monroe

Elementary School. The display is in the cafeteria and can be viewed by all students.

Carol Hart with the completed Bolivia Elementary School bulletin board. Both displays commemorate and celebrate the signing of the Constitution of the United States on Sept. 17, 1787.