Wow, Now Habersham readers, you really have stepped up for these kids! After last week’s article, so many of you have made more dreams come true for the eighth grade Bobcats. According to North Habersham Middle School teacher and fundraising organizer, Heather Hawkins, “we have had community commitments for snacks, water, sleeping bags, toiletries, etc.!” Money was also given to fund more kids. That brings the total number of NHMS students going on the eighth grade class field trip to Charleston in March to 130! As the countdown continues, there is still time for you to participate in supporting this effort.
If you missed last week’s article, you can read it here.
Some of these kids expected not to attend because they simply could not afford it. Here is the story of one young man as told by his teacher:
“One student has stuggled all of his life. His mother is currently absent from his life, having been trapped in the sadness of drug addition. He doesn’t understand how his mother can continue to choose drugs over him. He was unable to see his mom over the holidays which was devastating.
In our classrooms every day, teachers are sometimes the only healthy parental figures our students will ever know. When trapped within the desperation of drug addiction, parents can’t always communicate their love to their kids. I know his mom loves him, and I tell him his mom loves him. She just is not healthy enough right now to help him….and that’s why God sends us.
This trip will be the family vacation he has never seen! He has worked his way toward this trip by helping with the yard sale and offering everything he can through cleaning up concessions and sweeping the regifting room mess every day.
This kid will never forget that his community stepped up to help him when his mom was sincerely not healthy enough to fill this need. This is where we have the opportunity to break the cycle! Though his mom is not healthy enough to help him, he now has hundreds of voices to push him toward success. Success for him might look very different than we understand success to be. It may not be in graduating college or owning his own home one day. Maybe success to him will be to stop the continuing cycle of addiction within his family. Maybe success to him will be showing compassion to others because someone has shown compassion toward him. Success to him might mean if you work hard enough and give what you can, all of the pieces you need will fall into place.
I hope that readers will understand that our obligation as teachers is to teach more than standardized testing strategies, and we must not be distracted by standardized testing scores! My primary job is to teach our kids the ideas of community, hope, integrity, compassion, sincerity, tolerance, citizenship, empathy, problem solving, and sincere investment in each other. Our Charleston trip envelopes all of these hopes!
Thank you for joining our journey!”
To donate items or money, please contact Heather Hawkins at [email protected].
