Law Students

The Love You Make

By Andrea

The day of my Equal Justice Works interview, the one where that very night the fellowship woman called and told me they loved me and were willing to make me an offer, I was so doped up and high on gratitude and amazement that I went and spent money on something impulsive. Not shoes. Kids!

I went on DonorsChoose.org, a fantastic site where teachers submit dream projects their schools can't bankroll, and you donate to cover all or part of someone's wish. I searched for a Teach for America teacher in the Houston area with a language arts project that was cheap but meaningful. I found it in a 3rd grade TFA teacher in the diverse but not so rich Alief district who was teaching her kids nonfiction writing and journalism, but was desperately short pencils (!) and wanted to get them all clipboards so they could write away from their desks properly. She needed eighty bucks, I think. I had figured I'd spend fifty.

Click! I sent her the money, then told Dan, semi-apologetically, about my impulse buy. He laughed at me. "You have to be stopped!" he said.

I also wrote the teacher an email explaining why I had given her the money. That was me, I said. Then I left to go be a lawyer for those kids and their families, and the crazy part is, it's happening. So I'm paying it back. She was really touched, and I thought that was the end of it.

This week, I got a package in the mail. It was a cheap wooden frame, crowded with kid signatures, holding a photo of a smiling group of 3rd graders. There was also a packet of laminated letters, held together by a plastic comb binder (Oh, the comb binders!):

Dear Ms. Saenz Thank you for the clipboad they are useful I hope your lawyer business is going to be great thank you for the pencils Congratulations for ging to Harvard law school.

Dear Ms. Saenz I really want to thank for the things that you did for us. I hope you have a nice Life because what you was nice and generous. Congratulations for becoming a Harvard Law School. I would like to grow up and go to college. Have a lovely life.

Dear Ms. Seanz, Thank you! I want to be like you. Some day I'll be like you! You rock! You Rule! Your the boss! You Rock kids All Around the Whole World.

I almost cried.

There's nothing like getting back what you gave. Thanks, kids.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on February 13, 2008 (boomark / email).