The Blog

Elementary Schools Color Their World With Love

Emma and Lilly collected over 10,000 pencils at Twin Hickory Elementary in Richmond

My hubby Steve comes from an enormous family made up of people with huge hearts – and they don’t just talk the talk; they walk the walk. His great niece, Joan McMichael, who is technically my niece too even though she’s a year older than I, encouraged her daughters, Emma and Lilly, to collect used coloring pencils to accompany our Haiti coloring books. The girls attend Twin Hickory Elementary School in Richmond. During the spring of last year, they voiced their requests over the school’s PA system and WOW! The results!! They gathered over 10,000 coloring pencils for the children in Haiti. Lilly even sat on down the day before they were going to give them to me and sharpened every one. She showed me the blisters to prove it, bless her heart.Thank you as well, Mrs. Karen Callis, first grade teacher at John B. Dey Elementary School here in Virginia Beach. They collected bags and bags and bags  full of pencils at the end of the school year. This is their second year doing so, and they have made a difference to children who don’t have any pencils at all – colored or not.So far, some of the collected pencils went to Port-au-Prince with Hope for Haiti’s Children, and soon, more will go to other parts of Haiti with a group of missionaries from New York.  Still others went to Dominican Republic. We’ll see what happens to the rest soon. It sure is a bonus and a pleasure for me to give these pencils to groups who order the coloring books.So thank you, Joan, Emma, Lilly McMichael  and Twin Hickory Elementary School in Richmond! thank you to Mrs. Callis and John B Dey Elementary in Virginia Beach. You’ve set the bar pretty high for other schools and have made a difference, coloring your world with love.