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Plymouth pupils share winning entries for Mayflower 400 art competition

Jul 15, 2020

Three Plymouth schoolchildren were celebrating after their amazing drawings were chosen as the winning entries for a special Mayflower 400 art competition.

The competition was launched by local food support organisation Provide Devon and Shakespeare Primary School in a bid to support the local community food effort.

Part of the Mayflower 400 Community Sparks fund – a partnership project between Mayflower 400, Plymouth Culture, Plymouth City Council, The Box, Plymouth and Vital Sparks – the competition enabled children to be creative by coming up with a Mayflower 400-inspired artwork, with the winning design being printed onto reusable bags used for Provide Devon's crisis food packs within the Plymouth area.

Judging took place on Friday 10 July, 2020 and there were three winners in total - one for early years, one for lower primary and one for upper primary.

Weller, six, drew a bright and colourful lighthouse; Albie, eight, created a Mayflower ship with red sea, and 10-year-old Lola drew a boat, lighthouses and houses.

The three winners will have their designs printed on the Provide Devon food support bags later this year.

There were also three runners-up who won’t be printed but who also won prizes. All six pupils were given a bag of pencils, pens, drawing pad, scratch art pack and bubble wand, while the three main winners also received some chocolate, a skipping rope and a garden hoopla game.

Ayshea Cross, charity manager at Provide Devon, said: "The whole judging event was excellent and Mrs Hacker, parent support advisor, had worked so hard to display the children's artwork.

"Over 150 children had produced the most wonderful, colourful, and varied pictures and I hope she won't mind my saying but the sight of them fluttering in the breeze when we arrived actually made the artist judge, Sarah Smalldon, quite emotional.

"It was so hard to judge them - we went through the designs quite a few times before settling on the winning entries, which really encapsulated the spirit of the Mayflower 400 and Plymouth’s iconic lighthouse."

Karen Menis, head teacher at Shakespeare Primary School, said: "Shakespeare Primary School have a long-standing relationship with Provide Devon, who have been instrumental in supporting many of our families with food parcels for the last 18 months.

"This has continued during the pandemic and families have been supported at this difficult time with much-needed food hampers and toiletries.

"We were delighted when Ayshea Cross (charity manager at Provide Devon) invited us to take part in the Plymouth Mayflower 400 'Design a bag' competition over the lockdown period."

Karen continued: "Through our well-established social media home learning channels, we were able to invite children to join in the competition.

"The competition gives the children the opportunity to use their learning from school about the Mayflower 400 story and to develop their creative skills during these unprecedented times.

"We are also keen to be able to support this local charity and give something back to our local community."