Handwriting Award & SMART HEART Award

At last Friday's Assembly (2-5-2010), I introduced two new awards in the "Bring the White House to our House!" lunch program.

1. The Handwriting Award

2. SMART HEART Award

Our students have been writing letters to President Obama inviting him to come have lunch at our school, Sojourner Truth Academy, since December 1st. In the beginning, our students were writing between 30-50 letters a day. After a couple weeks, the number of letters grew to 40-80 letters a day. In the last week of January, our students were averaging OVER 100 letters a day as a school!

Each night, I take the letters home and read them. No doubt, it makes for long days. However, no matter how tired or crabby I am, reading and counting the letters re-energizes me and reminds me why I am doing this. The letters are humorous, heartfelt, compelling and profound, and I can see the growth in the letters the students wrote in December to the letters they wrote in February.

After reading over 2,000 LETTERS, a couple things have caught my eye. One, is handwriting; and two, is thoughtfulness. The Handwriting Award is quite self-explanatory. Students who are consistently mindful of their handwriting and letter layout are up for this award.

I created the SMART HEART Award to acknowledge students whose letters show both depth of thought and heart. Our students write about important issues of our times: homelessness, joblessness, poverty, and Haiti Disaster Relief. Some of these letters move me to tears, while others leave me in utter awe.

I wanted to post one letter in particular that inspired me to create this award. This letter is written by a 5th grader:

"Dear President Obama,

"I am writing this letter to tell you about a concern and issue of America.

"As you know their was an earthquake in Haiti, and America is sending funds to Haiti. Well, on January 30, 2010 I watched the Miss America pageant and the question selection , and one question was 'America is in a hard spot already, why should we send our money to Haiti?'

"Then it dawned on me that people are thinking about themselves and not of others meaning if more people do that little money will be sent and that will make you look bad.

"We the people to form a more perfect nation ask you our President to help us."