Double Bounty

I have two angels who supply my urban core classroom with supplies. At the start of the year they made sure every one of my students had notebooks, paper, dividers, white-out, pens, pencils, erasers, high-lighters, and index tabs. Every single kid on my caseload started out school with every supply needed for every class. What a difference this has had in the progress we are seeing in the classroom!

Today a Lincoln town car trunk load of groceries was delivered. We got fruit, pudding, crackers, cookies, Chef Boyardee bowls of pasta. It took two flat bed trucks to unload all the food and cart it to my classroom.

I had the kids in my Work Studies program make the food haul on the flatbeds. You should have seen their eyes when Hubby raised the lid on the trunk and laid out was ALL that wonderful food.

After unloading and rolling the flatbeds into the elevator to haul it all to the third floor, the kids were silent as they surveyed the bounty. Finally, my freshman spoke up.

This guy is from the behavioral disordered school that was closed for budgetary reasons this year. He's not been in a regular school for the last three years because he's violent, threatening, and disruptive. He is standing in his sagging pants and baseball cap next to the back flatbed, looking over the boxes and boxes of granola bars.

"Miss. Where did all this food come from?"

My senior, who knows everything and loves to share it, spoke up immediately. "Mrs. B and her husband provide us with the food. They buy it at Sam's. Hubby (which is how my kids know Hubby) went along with them this trip and then brought it to us."

The freshman boy stared at the other cart, loaded to the top with food.

"Miss. I didn't know that you knew people who hijacked Sam's trucks."

I guess that says it all, Mrs. B and Mr. C. It was inconceivable to my kids that someone could actually purchase this much food at one time.

The "thank you's" were in their eyes and their response to knowing that for the next several months, when they were hungry (and they are almost always hungry), they would be getting some decent food to eat. Not chips, not sweets. But fruit cups and fruit roll ups and healthy granola bars.

The food is safely put away now, stored in our closets and our storage bins. I won't have to share my sandwich on Tuesday with the cheerleader who has practice until 5 p.m. but lives on her own and hadn't had more than hot chips to eat for the past week. The boys who are starved by 11:30 will have granola bars to tide them over until third lunch at 12:20. The kid who needs meds in the morning won't be throwing them up because they were taken on an empty stomach.

This support provided by "anonymous" angels who really only get to meet the kids at the Christmas celebration will help us, not just survive, but thrive, during the school year.

Once again, Debby and Lou -- WE LOVE YOU!