BY MICHELE MILLER
The second-grader doesn’t look altogether thrilled as she poses in front of a purple door, on the front stoop of her home, for a first-day-of-school picture that makes me let go a laugh when it shows up on my social media feed.
My granddaughter’s panned expression is familial. It hearkens to the years when “back-to-school” was a thing in my own house and this kid’s auntie was starting the first day of another school year by being forced to pose in the front yard garden with her younger sister.
She wasn’t altogether happy either, I’m thinking as I take in the the slightly forced smile in the throw-back that also showed up on my social media feed last week. (Below)
Maybe she was put off with the antics of the sometimes bratty younger sibling swinging a blue lunchbox, or maybe I was snapping away per usual and saying “Just one more!” for the 100th or so time.
Circa 1998
“Enough,” she’s probably thinking. “Just get me to school already.”
School looks and feels different for this year’s second-grader who also has a rather gregarious younger sister to contend with. After the photo shoot she didn’t get on the bus or in the car for the trek to school, but rather she headed back inside to start the school day at a desk in a makeshift classroom that’s been set up in her home.
No doubt she would rather be in school with her friends and the teachers who, thus far, have provided a nurturing environment for her to thrive in. A place where violin classes, P.E., working in the school garden, and eating with classmates in the cafeteria provided social interaction, educational enhancements, and offered a well-needed break from the classroom setting.
There have been some hard choices to make for the second grader’s parents since COVID-19 upended our world.
I don’t envy them or all the other parents who have school-age-kids and are trying to juggle their own work schedules with distance learning and childcare concerns.
Given the limited information they have and the fluidity of the pandemic, learning at home seems to be the best and safest route for my son and daughter-in-law, even though they realize this could be a lost year of sorts when it comes to academics.
The second-grader has made some hard choices as well.
Given the option of being able to keep seeing two sets of grandparents who are at higher risk, or go to the brick-and-mortar school, she agreed with her parents and opted for us. She blew off a Disney vacation she was looking forward to as well for the same reason.
And she’s created her own silver lining.
Just a few weeks ago the second grader celebrated her 7th birthday by asking friends and loved ones to donate to the area’s food insecure instead of buying gifts for her.
After learning that people were going hungry – some kids like her who were missing meals – she said wanted to do something about it..
With her mom’s help the second-grader recorded some rather spirited fundraising videos, dubbing herself “Rainbow Girl.” In a couple of week’s time she raised over $1,300 for the non-profit Feeding Tampa Bay and Food Not Bombs.
“I don’t think people should be hungry or not have homes,” she told me and others who applauded her efforts.
As with other kids whose worlds have been upended, she is understandably ticked off to be starting her school year as she finished the last – in front of a computer screen, at home, with a younger sister who is downright distracting.
The second-grader has ideas about the future and the course of her studies. She has dreams of being a coder, an astronaut, or a scientist one day. That’s according to the sign she’s holding in the “back to school’ picture taken for posterity.
Time will tell whether she will get there or perhaps change her mind as she learns of other things.
That after all, is what the youthful years are for.
But at the ripe age of seven, she’s already learned something about what matters most.
In dire times, worthy actions are in bloom, nurtured by the kind and sensitive nature of a second-grader who’s just getting started.
Maybe it won’t be a lost year after all.
Hope.
Pass it on.
- For more information or to donate to Feeding Tampa Bay, go to the the website at feedingtampabay.org.
- For information or to donate to Food Not Bombs go to the website foodnotbombs.net
Michele Miller is the editor and owner of What’s What New Port Richey, a local blog focused on helping connect people to the community they live in. Before that she worked as a feature writer and photographer for the St. Petersburg Times/Tampa Bay Times. To reach her, email mmiller@whatswhatnewportrichey.com. To learn more, check out the About Page below.