Hundreds turn out for Life in a Jar book signing

In celebration of the Life in a Jar project -- inspiration for a nonfiction opus, play and movie -- as many as 200 people on Saturday attended a book signing at the Country Cupboard for "Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project."

The four founders of "Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project" and others who have participated through the years were on hand, along with two other students who were in the play. The 378-page work, written by Jack Mayer of Middlebury, Vermont, shares the story of Sendler, who rescued more than 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

It includes an account of how Uniontown High School students found Sendler and created the work that has now been performed more than 290 times across the United States, Canada and Poland.

Through the years, more than 36 students have been involved in the project form many schools around the area.

Jaunita Shepard of Girard knew the girls from Pittsburg State University when she used to work there. "They're wonderful girls," Shepard said. "I've followed them ever since they started this."

Norm Conard, director of the Lowell Milken Center, was the students' history, geography and government teacher. He said the project started Sept. 23, 1999 as a National History Day project after students saw a 1994 U.S. News & World Report story that mentioned Sendler. "It was this project that made her (Sendler) known to the world," Conard said. The website -- www.irenasendler.org -- has gotten 30 million hits.

Jane Adams was at the first production of the play about Irena Sendler in Uniontown and doesn't know how many times she's seen I since. She said she thinks it was the story that attracted her to the project. "And I did know a couple of the girls. It just sounded like something I wanted to know more about."

Sendler was a "very complex person," Conard said. Her father was a doctor. She had many Jewish friends growing up and grew up with the idea of accepting all people.

Those signing books, along with Conard, included Maegan Easter, who attended Northeast Arma High School, Megan Felt, Sabrina Murphy, Jessica Ripper, Elizabeth Hutton and Melissa Sammons, all of whom attended Uniontown High School.

"It was very nice to be able to see the group," Ripper said.

Murphy said she never thought the project would take on such significance. "No in my wildest dreams. It took on a life of its own," she said.

Conard said he thought the event went well, bringing in a mixture of new people and some familiar faces. "The book has been selling nationwide through our website," he said. And the author in Vermont has been selling the book as well. "It's been reaching out across the country and even overseas."

Currently, 100 schools around the world have performed "Life in a Jar," he said.