Sixth grade Kingsford Middle School student Alayna Pietrantonio and her winning artwork.

KINGSFORD — Alayna Pietrantonio, a sixth grade student at Kingsford Middle School was recently chosen as one of the winners of the annual Meemic Masterpiece Art Contest.

Emily Westphal’s second quarter Art 6 class was assigned the task of creating a submission. Each year, this contest invites K-12th grade students to submit an original piece of artwork using a theme for inspiration. For this year, the theme was: The Kindness Challenge. Students had to choose between different ways of showing kindness, like — be a good listener, be polite, show patience, be forgiving, etc.

Alayna chose showing patience as her theme. She was chosen as one of the 50 winners of the eighth annual contest across the state of Michigan.

Each winning artist will received an Amazon Fire tablet, a pair of Logitech wireless headphones, a Boogie Board Jot eWriter tablet, a framed certificate, and their submission will be featured in a virtual art gallery this August. In addition, Alayna’s winning submission also earned a $500 school supply grant to be used by Westphal for middle school art supplies next year.

This contest was conducted by The Meemic Foundation for the Future of Education, a non-profit company started in 1992 by the Meemic Insurance Company. Both companies are focused on serving and giving back to dedicated educational communities.