Like most communities, Dorset will celebrate the nation’s 250th Birthday Anniversary. There will be tractor rides, hot dogs, music, ice cream, and more. But there’s also something special coming from The Dorset School: a Happy 250th Birthday America t-shirt designed by one of its students.

“The idea was to give the kids an opportunity to play a part in our local celebration of our Nation’s special Birthday,” says Bri LeClerc of the Dorset School Parent Volunteers (DPV), who helped organize the T-Shirt contest. “With the help of the school and a number of local sponsors, we created the idea of hosting a contest at the school to select an official Dorset 250th Anniversary T-shirt, designed by one of our K-5 students.”

The kids took to the challenge, especially when they discovered prizes were involved. There would be awards given to a student from each grade level, plus a $100 prize from the Bank of Bennington for the overall winner of the best T-shirt design.

The rules were straightforward. Design a T-shirt using stars, stripes, American flag, bald eagle, Liberty Bell or whatever most winningly portrayed the country’s birthday, without being too busy or hard to read.

More than 50 students participated and the winners were announced at an All School assembly at the end of May. The Dorset School second grader, Susanna Bisceglia, took home the grand prize with a design for a shirt that will make you proud to wear. 

The 250th Anniversary T-shirt will be on sale for a price of $15 at the July 4th celebration on the Dorset Village Green. The shirts come in all adult and children’s sizes and can also be ordered online on The Dorset School website.

The proceeds will be used by the DPV to support learning activities for all students at the school. In addition to the Bank of Bennington, other local sponsors include Rising Sun, HM Williams, the Dorset Union Store, Barrows House, Willoughby’s Depot Eatery, and Bagel Works.

“As always, I applaud the commitment to our kids by our Parent Volunteers and local sponsors,” says TDS Principal Rosanna Moran. “But most rewarding was watching the effort and creativity demonstrated by our students under the guidance of our school art teacher Breya Leach. I am so proud of their work.”

(Photo above: The Dorset School second grader, Susanna Bisceglia, took home the prize for designing the school's official 250th Birthday T-shirt.)

This depiction shows the winning design for the Dorset 250th Birthday T-shirt.