Carson High senior’s project unites community, raises money for school district

A Carson High School senior helped unite the community and raise money for the school district by trying to break a world record Saturday.

Taylor Weddell’s senior project was to try to break the world record and create the largest Christmas tree made of people. Weddell invited the community to the football field at Carson High School Saturday morning to participate in the record attempt. She needed 3,000 people to stand still for six minutes in the formation of a Christmas tree to break the record. The previous record was 2,945 people, done by a group in Honduras.

Only 490 people showed up Saturday to participate in the event, but they raised over $750, which will all be donated back to the school district. Capital City Eats also was at the event and sold hot chocolate, coffee and chili.

“It’s amazing when one young lady has a vision and when one young lady says I want to bring the community together and raise money too,” said Ian Hill, president of the Carson City School Foundation.

Hill, along with Mayor Robert Crowell, Superintendent Richard Stokes, School Board President Ron Swirczek and other members of the foundation joined Weddell in welcoming the participants Saturday morning.

“I think the spirit of Carson is alive and I can say how proud our community is of Taylor for coming up with this idea,” Crowell said. “Let’s have a great day and a great holiday season.”

It took the group nearly 15 minutes to set up the crowd in the middle of the football field, giving each participant a brown, green, red or yellow piece of construction paper to represent the different parts of the tree, star on top and ornaments. The crowd then had to stand still with their pieces of paper up for six minutes as a drone flew overhead capturing the scene.

The idea for the event came from her mentor who also used her senior project to raise money. Though only a quarter of the expected number of people showed up, Weddell wasn’t upset and said she still was happy with the event.

“I definitely feel better now that it is over, and I am feeling great,” Weddell said. “I am glad that people came together and had a great time.”