Student designs campus-wide T-shirt for Lent

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This T-shirt was designed by Jasmin Chowdhary, a student at St. John the Baptist Middle School student, for the Skaggs Catholic Center’s Lenten observance this year.

DRAPER — Each year, a different school on the Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper, which houses Saint John the Baptist elementary and middle schools and Juan Diego Catholic High School, designs the campus-wide Lenten T-shirt. This year, that project fell to middle-school student Jasmin Chowdhary, whose design included a Lenten message referencing the Jubilee Year theme “Pilgrims of Hope.”  

The T-shirt depicts a cross with an anchor at the bottom “to remind us that Jesus is God, our hope and our security,” said Vanessa G. Jacobs, SJBMS principal.

“The anchor is the symbol of hope and reminds that even with life challenges, God is there,” she added. “This Jubilee Year, we celebrate the faithful as Pilgrims of Hope. The crown of thorns symbolizes God reminding us that, while we inherited original sin, Jesus’ sacrifice gives us the gift of grace and salvation. Collectively, these symbols show us that Jesus steers us towards salvation and is anchored in the hope of eternal life and fulfillment of God’s promises this Lenten season.”

The design was inspired not only by the elements that were required but also by past Lenten shirts, Jasmin said. She thought her original design was boring, “so I added blank spaces between the anchor, cross and the crown of thorns. I think it made it look way more interesting because it now balances the positive and negative spaces of the design,” she said.

She also pondered what elements she would include.

“The objects on the shirt have meaning behind them,” she said: The anchor and cross symbolize the strength of the school’s faith, along with the connection each person has with God. The crown of thorns symbolizes Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice. Lastly, Jasmin added the words to represent her school.

On Ash Wednesday, when she saw members of the Skaggs Catholic Center community wearing the T-shirt that she designed, “I felt happy and proud,” she said. “It was a great opportunity to be recognized for doing something I love.”

Delena Chowdhary, Jasmin’s mother, said that her daughter’s art “has consistently been a way for her to deal with difficult situations and express herself. … The joy and confidence she gets from art flows back into everything else in her life.”

In addition to her love of art, Jasmin thinks “having faith is important because it helps you get closer with God and it helps people feel better because they are able to trust that he is there to help,” and it helps them “face hard situations because God is always with them,” she said.

Jasmin’s mother said designing the T-shirt “has been an amazing opportunity for her to share her talent with the SJB community and then get recognized for it. … Personally, I did not fully appreciate the connection between religion, faith and art until recently.”

The family is from Utah, but moved abroad for several years, returning when Jasmin was 11.

“I think it is cool that the school puts so much effort into highlighting the connection to God,” Jasmin said.