If you've been reading this week, you know I challenged my students to give this year to support some disadvantaged families in our district. We started collecting late and had to turn the money in last night to our "Communities in Schools" personnel.
I was hopeful that we would at least collect $100, but I challenged the kids to try to all bring $2. I have about 125 students; with some of them kind of needing to be on the list themselves, I figure about 100 kids can donate and about 75% of those will give $2 or more. A few will toss in a quarter or handful of change leftover from lunch. Some can't give at all or won't. Most years though I find that most of the kids will give something. However, with only 4 days, I wasn't sure many would remember in time. I just wasn't sure how much we could expect.
I talked with Mr. Isaac, one of the CIS people, and he was so glad to have whatever we could scrape together. I told him I would bring it down after my last class on Thursday. I walked into the office with a big cookie tin. Mr. Isaac, who is always so warm and welcoming, smiled and opened the tin. His eyes grew three sizes. He threw the lid back on and ran into Ms. John's office. "You need to look inside this tin," he said.
She wasn't sure what to expect. I don't think he had told her what my students were doing. I wish I had taken a picture to show my students because her eyes immediately filled with tears. I told her it was $280. She said, "Do you have any idea how much good this money will do?" I told her honestly I just hoped it was enough that no one would go without something to open on Christmas.
Voice husky with unshed tears, she told me that it was enough to make sure all their families were covered and maybe enough to buy turkeys for all their families to have a real holiday dinner. She was crying, I was crying, the hulking man Arnold Isaac is - he was crying. I was so proud of my students. They really stepped up and made a difference.
I was teary eyed all the way to my classroom. I ran into one of my kiddos from last year. I had just asked him if he wanted to help again this year. He had dug through his pockets and pulled out $2. That $2 made the donation a nice even $280. I told him how Ms. John and Mr. Isaac responded to our gift. He was so moved that his eyes filled with tears. "Mrs. D, that makes me feel so good, I wish I had given it all." He had a twenty in his wallet. I told him that they might not have left for the day. He raced downstairs to their offices and gave everything he had on him. That last $20 brought our grand total to just over $300.
This morning he walked by me and told me he had caught them before they left for the day. He felt so good about giving. I know that giving is supposed to be about the giving and not about feeling so good about yourself, but I don't know how you can give and not feel so good that you want to shout from the rooftops! Not for honor or praise just because it feels so darn good to do something kind in this world where kindness is all too rare.
So - as the famous editorial once answered a little girl in 1897, "Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished."
I am not the best teacher who ever lived; no one will ever make a movie about me like "Freedom Writers", but maybe I can be the teacher who sparks a light of hope in their hearts and gives the world a few more Santa Clauses. In twenty years, they may not remember what a gerund is or be able to explain a literary allusion, yet, I can hope they will remember generosity and the true meaning of CHRISTmas.
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