You have to hand it to Cleveland’s very own No Landmines Club; they picked a winner for their new t-shirt design contest. After much deliberation by club members, freshman Anna Kolpakova’s submitted design was officially selected the winner.

“We created the design [contest] to get the school involved,” said co-president Brianna McCracken, a junior who joined the club this school year. The contest, which ended in November after “close to ten” entries were submitted by various students, was also a way to replace an older design of simple white lettering and a white outline of Cambodia, where the club’s adopted field is located, over red.

Kolpakova, a freshman, received a free t-shirt and prize money of $20 from the club for her effort. She is not a club member, but after seeing the contest poster in the hallway, she claims the design idea came to her through unorthodox means. “Actually, I saw it in a dream, which is kinda weird,” she said, laughing. Drawing is currently her hobby, but because science interests her more, she says she plans to work for NASA.

The new design can be seen as a reiteration of their guiding principle to pursue and eradicate abandoned landmines on former battlefields that, according to Adopt-A-Minefield, maim and kill 15 to 20,000 each year across the globe. This is no easy process, and worldwide removal of landmines is nowhere close to being done. Detecting specific mines within a field and removing them is slow, dangerous, and expensive work. By adopting a particular field, similar to what other clubs in the No Landmines network have done, the removal work there is financed by continued donations to the club and fundraisers.

Sue Van Loon, an upper level art teacher at Cleveland and organizer and host of the club’s activities for the past two years, said the club has been around for four to five years, and was usually associated with the IB program, “but it’s opened up now.” The new t-shirts debuted at “Bridging the Gap” Feb. 8 alongside the red, and a newer black version of the old design as well. All are currently available to buy; each shirt costs $12, and sizes come in youth, small, medium, large, and extra large.

McCracken did mention a fundraiser might be happening in the near future, possibly late spring. “I feel ice cream coming on, but not sure yet.”