Here is the part of the message that Molly Burke, the school Success Coach, sent me via my Facebook page: 

Our students have a weekly homeroom-like Community Connections class, where we cover a variety of topics such as social-emotional learning, college and career readiness, and celebrations of various cultural, racial, ability, sexuality, etc., heritage months and themes throughout the year.

In April we are celebrating and exploring Ability Challenges and lifestyle. The various aspects of what it’s like to live with visible and invisible differences, abilities, and inequities. A major hope we have is to raise awareness and increase understanding so our kids have more empathy for those experiencing life through a presumably more difficult and less forgiving lens. But we don’t want to make any assumptions. Ultimately, we believe sharing stories teaches as well as anything and would be honored if you wanted to contribute to our school-wide lesson. It’s an opportunity to educate 800+ students and 50 staff. 

Might you be interested in saying a little something about yourself and what your life is like? Something simple, in a 2-4 minute video? 

She even offered me twenty dollars for my time. I said to put the money to good use at the school. You can imagine I would’ve paid her to spread my message of hope to a group of kids who were all going through their own challenges of early adolescence. 

So, I made a video for her to show the students, and they loved it. Here’s what Molly wrote when I asked how it went over:

“The students loved your video and felt it was very uplifting…Thanks again for your participation!!”

That made my heart warm, for sure. You can see the video on my YouTube channel, along with other videos of me spreading my message of hope. Please give it a like and subscribe.

Warmly yours,

Karen