When Sara Hart presented a 28lb sculpted pumpkin to the US Embassy for Thanksgiving, the gift had a personal significance.

The 23-year-old artist, daughter of an English mother and American father, feared her relatives in New York could have been among the victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Her pumpkin sculpture was created as part of an art project started months before the September 11 atrocities and was the last work in a series aimed at uniting urban and rural communities.

She decided her piece would make a fitting gift to bring cheer to Americans spending Thanksgiving far from home during such troubled times.

It is illuminated by three lights for friendship, love and hope and has the Stars and Stripes and Union Flag crossed plus words from president George W Bush.

The inscription reads: "I will keep moving forward, forever forward towards an endless dream and a thousand pumpkin lights", believed to be an adaptation of the president's first address after the attacks.

Sara and her family suffered an agonising wait for almost a day before discovering her uncle and cousins were safe.

She watched the television coverage of two jet airliners crashing into the Twin Towers in horror at home in Southridge Rise, Crowborough.

Her father Robert, an ex-US Navy serviceman who worked at the American Embassy in London during the Sixties, tried desperately to call his brother and the American half of the family in New York but could not get through.

Sara's uncle Andy, who works for Morgan Stanley, was supposed to be working at the Trade Centre that day.

Fortunately, his plans had changed before the attacks and the family later discovered he was safe.

She said: "We eventually got hold of him via email but we were sitting fretting for hours. My cousins live in Manhattan, close to Ground Zero, and we did not know where they were until we got through to my uncle.

"It was very harrowing until we found out. It was all very shocking for all of us.

"The sculpture was something to show Americans both home and abroad that people are thinking of them.

"We have heard a lot of people say even the smallest gesture helps to lift spirits. I think the fact it was a pumpkin made them smile.

"Pumpkins are part of the tradition of Thanksgiving, so the project seemed to have a poignant significance.

"I chose the symbol of the flags because a lot of people have been wearing the image on badges to show solidarity.

"It is significant to me because I have grown up wearing badges like that since the year dot. I have a dual passport. I am Anglo-American. So it is an image which means a lot to me."

The pumpkin was presented to American Embassy official Dan Screebny.

It was the former Beacon Community College and Brighton College student's first commission after graduating from Loughborough University with a degree in fine art sculpture.

She worked on the project with Gillian van der Meer, farmer and president of the Women's Farmers Union, who grew the pumpkin at her farm in Ashburnham near Battle and was the brainchild behind many of the ideas in the agricultural scheme.

They have taken the project into schools across Sussex, sculpting templates with pupils, and put their living art on display at farmers markets.