Helping Hands

Day 336 

At a PTO Board meeting last week, I ask the boys’ principal if she’s overheard any kids talking about Sandy Hook.  My question comes after an update on district security and ready preparedness, all scary topics in our new normal. 

She confirms what I suspect: Very few kids know of the shootings.  Many parents, like Chaz and I, chose to not share the news but instead be ready to answer questions if asked.   

I don’t want to create fear where none exists.

Still, as my kids finish their first full week back to school after the holiday break, I can’t help but think of the kids all those states to our east who will enter school today on the one-month anniversary. 

There’s talk by school officials to relocate Sandy Hook Elementary School students to a new building located in adjacent Monroe over the next few weeks.  To welcome them to their new school, teachers are asking kids from around the country to send handprints that the teachers will string together and hang around the school. 

I imagine a rainbow of little hands from California to Ohio to Massachusetts stretching across the hallways, weaving themselves through classrooms, hugging children as they walk from lunch to music class.  We're in.        

I tell the boys that we are sending the hands to a school that needs our help.  I don’t elaborate.  They don’t ask.  They hear “help” and that’s reason enough to jump on board.

We gather together white computer paper and a variety of washable paints.  Each boy paints his hand before pressing it into the paper.  We add our names and hometown and set them to dry before I find an envelope to mail them later this afternoon.

In, too?  Find some paint and paper and send along your handprints to: 

Helping Hands

c/o L. Mazzariello

69 Osborne Hill Rd.

Sandy Hook, CT 06482 

*Thank you to my new blogger friend Sheila for the idea.  Her and her boys finished handprints last week and sent them on as well.