Last year the 6th grade reading teacher at our school had her students write a letter to Santa. The catch was that they could not ask for something for themselves but had to ask for something for someone else. The letters ranged from cute to heart-breaking. Out of those letters she identified a family in need and started a collection to help this family. It exploded and more than $1000 was raised in a short period of time.
Understand that it is nothing to find families in need at our school where over 50% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced lunches. But this family was unique because, were it not for the letter, no one would have known of the need in this family.
The teacher decided last January that this year she would not have the kids write the letters this year as it had been so sad. But 2 weeks ago she changed her mind and again identified a family in need. This family with 4 kids is homeless and living in a motel (that qualifies as homeless), all 6 of them in one room. We had no idea. So this family has been adopted this year. There is a coin drive going on and other events like paying a dollar to wear a hat.
On Friday one of the teachers asked her class if anyone had any money for the bucket. Who stood up with a dollar to drop in the bucket? The homeless boy. He doesn't know his family is the adopted family, but he had a dollar to donate. It was all the teacher could do not to burst out crying as she watched him proudly walked to the front of the room to drop his dollar in the bucket.
May the spirit of Christmas be with you this year also.
3 comments:
What a great story! In church we do a sub for Santa tree each year to help several families in our ward. This year it was totally without letting the families know. Same thing happened. A lady took a paper off the tree to buy something for a lady. SHE is the lady. So cool to see!!!
That's awesome!
Great story. I hope that family is blessed with their Christmas gift from the PTA. Lots of sad stories at your school this year.
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