Linwood is thrilled to announce our new sister school relationship with The Daniel School in South Korea. The idea to partner with The Daniel School was introduced to us in February 2017 by Maryland’s First Lady, Mrs. Yumi Hogan, in coordination with Secretary Carol Beatty from the Maryland Department of Disabilities. Mrs. Hogan and Secretary Beatty felt that Linwood School would be the perfect fit for this new partnership given the organization’s long history of supporting students on the autism spectrum. Linwood’s mission aligns well with the Daniel School, which provides a special education program for children with a variety of disabilities.
To mark this new relationship, the Daniel School and Linwood School received donations of matching sculptures made by co-artists Thomas Clement and Wonsook Kim. The sculpture, called “Hyunsu’s Butterfly,” depicts a young boy holding a butterfly and was inspired by the story of a boy from South Korea with disabilities who was adopted by an American family. As a native-born Korean adopted by an American family himself, Mr. Clement felt a connection to this story and designed the sculpture with a vision of using it to connect two schools serving students with disabilities in South Korea and America.
Over the past few months, we have worked closely with Mrs. Hogan to install the new sculpture at Linwood School and plant a beautiful flower garden around it with the assistance of donations from the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks, Walnut Springs Nursery, and the Hogan family. Some of our students also made stepping stones for their new friends at The Daniel School to accompany their matching sculpture!
After a lot of hard work and fun gardening days, we were delighted to unveil the sculpture, celebrate our new sister school partnership, and honor the sculpture artists on June 12, 2017. Thank you to everyone who joined us at the event, and a very special thanks to the following individuals and businesses for making this new partnership possible:
- Thomas Clement & Wonsook Kim
- First Lady Yumi Hogan
- General (Ret.) and Mrs. Rod Isler
- Secretary Carol A. Beatty & Maryland Department of Disabilities
- Mr. Huh, Sung’s Construction
- Walnut Springs Nursery
- Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks
- County Executive Allan H. Kittleman
- The Daniel School
