by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
May 16, 2007 will always be a day remembered by students at New Berlin Elementary School.
With the assistance of employees from Jacksonville Port Authority’s Blount Island Terminal, the students buried a time capsule beside the school’s flagpole that contained mementos, trinkets and clippings of current events – all representative of New Berlin’s first year. The capsule will be opened 12 years from now when this year’s kindergartners graduate.
The ceremony began with some words from the school’s staff and faculty. The event continued as fifth graders Sam Mankins, Josh Ortiz, Josh Hawkes and Connor Flynn along with Port Authority employee James “JJ” Nolan lowered the capsule into the ground. Each of the school’s teachers then took turns shoveling dirt over the capsule, sealing it until 2019.
Among the students’ treasures were signed New Berlin Elementary T-shirts, scribes of popular song lyrics of tunes from 2006-07 and self-addressed letters about some of their favorite things.
“We wanted each student to feel as though there was something in the capsule that represented a piece of them,” said school Principal Deidra Johnson. “The Time capsule was a 2’x3’x8” metal box with limited space so every single student couldn’t put something in, but we have something provided by each class.”
New Berlin Elementary School, located on Jacksonville’s Northside, opened last year and has nearly 800 students. Johnson said the idea for the capsule itself was started by the school’s teachers at the beginning of the school year as a way of celebrating its opening and first graduating class.
Nolan, a New Berlin Elementary neighbor and Tech III for The Port Authority’s Blount Island Terminal for nearly 19 years, donated the time capsules case and volunteered to help the students bury it. Nolan said the effort was just part of being a good neighbor and goes hand-in-hand with the Port Authority’s mission to assist the community.
“I live just a few minutes away and this is for a good cause so I wanted to help,” he said. “Plus, I have to admit, it was also, a ‘honey-do.’ Nolan joked that the Port Authority/New Berlin Elementary School connection came in part due to the fact that his wife Judy is a kindergarten teacher at the school.
“She’s been a teacher for 20 years and I’ve always found myself helping out with her projects, especially with her students, in any way that I can,” he said.
While 12 years might seem like only a little while to some, for the students at New Berlin, it’s an eternity. Still, they say, they’ll wait it out until the exciting day comes when they can finally open it.
“I don’t care where I’m at by then, I’ll come back to see them open it (the time capsule),” said fifth-grader and school patrol Cristal Benitez. “Even if I’m away at college somewhere far away, I’ll ask for one day off to go see it.”