Our Lady of Lourdes School in Salt Lake City, one of the first schools in Utah to receive its sanctioned Olympic pins, has already started selling the shipment of 400 or so pins to students.
Featuring three different designs — a snowboarder on one, a skier and a chalkboard on the others, all containing the school's name as well as the Olympic logo — the parochial school is selling the pins for $7.50 each, with all money going back into the school.
"We felt we needed to order the pins with our names on them because isn't that cool?" said Tonni Trujillo, who serves as the school's Olympic liaison. "Your kids only go to grade school one time and if you can get that Olympic pin with your (school's) name on it, that's quite some keepsake."
Trujillo expects the school will sell out of its pins by the end of the month, especially with Christmas season fast approaching.
The school Olympic pins are part of a statewide Salt Lake Organizing Committee program that started in September. Kits were sent to all K-12 grade schools in Utah and they were allowed to choose from a multitude of designs, adding their school's name.
In keeping with the age-old tradition of pin collecting and trading, principal Cathy Moore is already coordinating the efforts of sending a pin to first grader Aaron Bigelow's classroom in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He and his family will be moving to Salt Lake City in less than a week's time, and he will attend Our Lady of Lourdes.
His teacher and class followed the Sydney Olympics so closely, the rest of his classmates were excited to learn he's going to be in the midst of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"He really is quite excited to come there, especially after just watching it (in Sydney)," mother Laurie Bigelow said.
Money raised as a result of pins sold will go toward a peace garden with trees and flowers, Moore said.
E-mail: dmoody@desnews.com