Warm Fuzzies from a Teacher Run-In. The Youth of Three Years Ago Finally Seeing Their Summer Work in Print. Same Smile. Always.

Several summers ago, before the pandemic took off, Semhar and Robel contacted CWP to see if their little brother, Natu, could attend Little Lab for Big Imaginations. Well, of course. He came to the program for 3rd thru 5th and was a tremendous hit. He mesmerized teachers, assistants, and peers. 

But then the world shut down. I published an edition of POW! Power of Words, but with the craziness of Covid, young people never got the publication of their achieved work.

So today, 2022, when teacher Jessica Baldizon says she ran into this young man and gave him a copy of POW! (in which he was published), I genuinely understand the smiles as authentic. 

Our communities have been separated and divided. Our fluid trajectories have been clogged. Our investment in youth has been severed.

Ah, but today, the smiles and reunions, they help me to see all the work we still have left ahead, including the restoration of what we were achieving before Covid entered the dialogue of the United States.

Here's to Natu! Here's to Ms. Baldizon! Here's to the possibilities of investing in the young minds we love and adore!