By Elizabeth Trela
Community service and supporting those in our community is an important part of the education that students receive at Queen of Apostles School. During the school year, the 5th grade class visits the Morgan Center, where they work with clients on various tasks.
During these visits, they play games, engage in conversation, and complete projects. This is one of the things that students missed when the school transitioned to distance learning.
Their teacher, Mrs. James reached out to the Morgan Center and found a way to continue these connections. And so, students began writing letters to the clients to share what they have been doing during shelter in place.
They wrote about parents and grandparents helping them with schoolwork and how they would prefer to be on campus. They shared stories about having time to practice new songs on the piano, making puzzles with their siblings, having time to do some more things and fun reading, and finding different ways to practice and play sports. One student even used emojis to help express the various projects he had been working on.
As part of their learning experience, students had to learn how to write a letter that may not get a response. For example, they learned how to change an open-ended question such as, “How are you doing?” into “I hope that you are doing well.” During one of their online meetings, they talked about how writing these letters impacted their lives.
Students expressed that it felt good to share some kindness with people they had met earlier in the school year during Morgan Center visits. They also expressed that they wondered how the clients at the Morgan Center were doing. While students may not receive responses to their letters, they know that they have been a connection to another person during this time that all of us are apart from one another.