TOLEDO—Central Catholic High School junior Deidre Gaertner received an honorable mention award for her poetry from the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo and the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA).

The ART in TARTA Committee chose a poem she wrote based on this year’s theme of Restore Planet Earth to appear in TARTA buses around the Toledo area.

The text of her poem follows:

Diamonds falling from the heavens
like tiny dancers.
Twisting, turning, tumbling
onto my windowsill they keep falling.
Delicate designs weaving
a story from another time,
another place.

Over the summer, Deidre was accepted into the Young Artists at Work program run by the Toledo Arts Commission. She worked with artists from Toledo and Bowling Green for six weeks, helping to beautify Toledo by painting artistic scenes on park benches and trash receptacles located in gardens and parks throughout the city. Deidre’s individual project was a series of paintings of Victorian women that were later sold to raise money for future Young Artists at Work programs.

“I got paid for doing the art I love, and it was a great learning experience,” said Deidre.