Our preschool, which is a part of a non-profit agency serving a socioeconomically challenged area of Fort Myers, Florida, gives children a stronger ground to stand on upon entering public school. But this wasn’t always the case…
In 2007 I entered the day care I was going to convert to a Montessori preschool and began accessing what we would need. I quickly realized I would need the help of others to do this. I started with two local Montessori schools: Renaissance School and Montessori Academy of Naples (through years of support and collaborations we call each other “sister schools”).
I taught 13 years at affluent schools and never realized just how lucky my students and I were when we received brand new materials. Getting new materials was like getting presents on a special holiday! But now I needed to ask others to share whatever they could. What we received was a blessing but it was also humbling. These materials are the ones that are on their last leg and are being replaced by something that is cleanly cut and freshly painted. But we knew these pieces of work, chipped and dented, were going to change lives.
We had mismatched shelves that volunteers sanded and stained for us, pieces of the work that had been repaired the best that we could and eight person table tops that had been cut down to two and four person table tops. Our classes had the very basics but still needed more. One day I get a phone call from Margot telling me a school had shut down and they were entrusting her to give the materials to someone in need. I couldn’t believe it! She was delivering a massive amount of beautifully chipped and dented materials to us! Our classes were fairly complete now.
A relationship with a group of individuals from a local neighborhood had been growing for a couple of years. Those individuals held an event that raised enough money for us to buy brand new, never been chipped or dented, materials! At the same time the new material was coming in I got a phone call from my mentor, Drina Madden. A Guatemalan orphanage, where her granddaughters were adopted from, needed materials…Montessori materials. Within a couple of weeks the chipped, dented and much-loved materials were traveling again to a teacher and students that would most likely feel as blessed as we did.
If I ever think giving is a lost art I think about the journey the “red rods” and how they have brought people from different states and countries together.
Montessori Leadership / Summer 2013 / p 28
