HEARTS FOR UKRAINE

My name is Ryan Hirschhorn, I am 13 years old, in 8th grade and I live in Massapequa, New York. I want you to know where the idea for this project came from and how you can help.

Origin.

In 4th grade on Valentine's Day, I was in my magnet class; my teacher gave us red, pink, and purple paper strips and asked us to make hearts and put them together in any arrangement we want. That day, when I came home my dad asked me about the project. So I told him and he fell in love with them immediately. We discussed making the sculpture with different materials, selling them online, and starting a small business. I thought about it and I liked the idea. I even got to discuss it with the famous artist Phillip K. Smith III. We started brainstorming and came up with making a maquette (a small version of a sculpture) out of copper and painting them pink, purple, and red. We bought copper and we cut and shaped and painted, but we forgot a crucial detail: How would we put them together? We brainstormed again and decided to solder them together. (Which means to “glue or weld two pieces of metal by melting another metal between them and fusing the two pieces together). And so we started to solder but we soon realized that the paint would burn and come off the hearts. So, I gave up…

Why I Started Again.

A couple of months ago my dad informed me that a battle had broken out inside Ukraine and he told me Russia wanted to take back control over them again. When I learned this, I wanted to do everything I could to help. My dad and I started thinking of things we could do and came up with the idea to revisit the hearts but in yellow and blue since they are the colors of the Ukrainian flag. We would make them out of aluminum and they were going to be 10 times bigger than the original. 

Once we decided that we would take them out of aluminum, he went to Chivvis Enterprises, a custom metal fabrication shop, and had them make prototype hearts so I could lay them out and find a shape that I liked. Once we had done that we decided that instead of soldering the hearts we would rivet them since it is less messy and the paint would not fall off. We brought it to my dad’s friend’s shop, Seal Fiberglass where we sanded, primed, painted, and assembled the sculpture. After countless hours of work; we finished! When I first saw it I was so happy with the way it turned out. But I was happier that I was able to contribute to such a good cause.

What Do These Hearts Mean To Me?

These hearts mean a lot to me. These hearts, to me, mean that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. These hearts mean that there is hope. These hearts mean that if we work together we will persevere.

How Can You Help?

Donate to PROJECT C.U.R.E. HERE                                            Learn more about PROJECT                                                                                                                          C.U.R.E. HERE