At the Ferry Street Resource Center, the Niles Art Association’s Sue Coultas and Sandy Williams presented kids with a very special project.

The children were given paper butterfly cutouts and asked to come up with their own colorful creation.

But the project has a far deeper meaning.

The children at the Ferry Street Resource Center are joining the association and many throughout the Niles and surrounding communities in remembering those children whose lives were lost in the Holocaust as part of the Holocaust Museum of Houston’s The Butterfly Project.

The Niles Art Association began collecting butterflies to submit to the Texas museum earlier this summer.
Coultas said it was Williams who first heard of the effort to remember 1.5 million children who were killed during the Holocaust.

“She thought it was a wonderful thing and thought that we could at least do it and why not ask the community?” she said.

Since then, members of the association have been creating their own butterflies and working with others to collect as many as possible to send to Houston. The Buchanan Art Center, Niles High School, Howard-Ellis Elementary School and St. Mary’s Catholic School also contributed to the Niles Art Association’s efforts.

Some of the butterflies have been on display at Trailhead Mercantile in downtown Niles.

“We’re going to display them at Trailhead Mercantile and people can drop them off there as well,” Coultas said.

Anyone can contribute to the project and bring their two dimensional butterflies down to Trailhead Mercantile.

So far the association said they estimate they’ve collected a couple hundred of butterflies already and will continue collecting them through June.

For more information on the project, visit www.hmh.org.