BIDDEFORD — Ask Elizabeth Ames and she’ll tell you that the role of an educator is to instill in students a desire to improve the lives of others and leave the community better off than how they found it.

Ames, the art teacher at Biddeford Middle School, is succeeding at doing just that and last Friday evening, she joined some of her students in celebrating the completion of a new student-created tile sign which now hangs above the door at the Biddeford Food Pantry.

“My dad volunteers here and he let us know that the Biddeford Food Pantry recently bought the building and could use a sign,” Ames said. “I thought the kids should get involved because this facility is so valuable to our city. I didn’t need to sell the project very much as they enjoy creating things and have a natural urge to give back to the community.”

She said that a total of 116 seventh- and eighth-graders at BMS contributed by making 116 colored tiles for the sign out of clay and glaze this spring during art classes. It contains an array of colors and student-drawn designs of food and fruit objects.

To purchase the material needed for the project they received a grant from the Biddeford Education Foundation.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without their help and financial support,” Ames said.

As students gathered to look upon their finished artwork, their pride was evident.

“My first thought about the project was that it was going to take a long time,” said eighth-grader Amber Huot. “We started out with a slab of clay and then added on pieces as it went through five stages of using the kiln before applying a final finish.”

She said that her work on the sign tile amounted to several months and now that she’s seen the final product, she’s amazed at how it turned out.

“It’s so lovely,” Huot said.

Andrew Ouellette, who will enter ninth-grade in the fall, said his motivation for working on the tile sign was simple.

“I did it because I know that a segment of our community depend on this place,” Ouellette said. “I simply wanted to help in any way I could.”

Ouellette said that hardest part of his work on the project was making sure every detail was in the right spot.

“Now that it’s all done and we can see how everything fit together, I think it looks great,” Ouellette said.

Ames said now that the sign has been installed at the food pantry, her students can take great pride in what they have accomplished.

“Oh my god, it’s beautiful,” she said. “I’m overwhelmed at what a beautiful job they did.”

Biddeford Food Pantry was established in 1981 as the Friends of Community Action Food Pantry and is the oldest food pantry in the state. It has been at its current location for the past 12 years and through a groundswell of community support and donations, the non-profit organization was able to purchase the building at 162 Elm St. in Biddeford in December.

The food pantry does not refuse to help anyone who is seeking assistance and has been using a homemade sign for the past few years.

Don Bisson is the director of the Biddeford Food Pantry and was on hand for the student gathering to thank them for their kindness in creating the sign.

“It’s another miracle that God put together,” Bisson said.”I couldn’t believe it when I first saw what these students had created. What a wonderful work of art and it’s an example of children doing something to benefit our community. It’s truly gorgeous and we can’t thank these young people enough for doing this.”

— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 ext. 326 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com