Friday, November 04, 2011

The Smile Like Sunshine

Our Life Skills Class (and for those of you who aren't familiar with that term, it's the kids with mild to severe disabilities) does a lot of fund-raising throughout the year to pay for their Special Olympics team.  They do teacher luncheons, make and sell cookies, and sell flavored coffees.  

I'm a coffee drinker myself, but I usually don't drink any once I get to school.  However, a few weeks ago I got the email from the Life Skills teacher and she mentioned that the flavor that day was Almond Joy (one of my favorite candy bars).  It costs a dollar for a HUGE cup of coffee, and it's delivered to your room by a Life Skills student (or students) and one of the kids that volunteer to help in that classroom.  I figured I'd give the coffee a try (it was awesome) because it sounded good and the kids could use the money for their fund.

It's kind of fun - you call the Life Skills room, and order your coffee.  About ten minutes later a hot, steaming cup of coffee is delivered to your room.  The first time I did it, one of my homeroom kids was the helper, and my "delivery boy" was a sweet little kid in a wheel chair.  I gave them both reward money and thanked them for the coffee.  Sunshine Boy in the wheel chair lit up like I'd just given him a million dollars and waved that reward buck around with abandon. 

That made my day.

Today, another email about Almond Joy arrived, and I ordered another cup of coffee.  Another one of my kids was the helper and he came with Sunshine Boy and another kid who helped pushed Sunshine Boy's wheelchair.  I paid my real dollar for my coffee and gave all three of them a reward buck.  Again, Sunshine Boy just lit up like a Christmas tree, giggled and waved that reward buck like nobody's business.

That smile and that unadulterated joy was just awesome!  

So now, I think I'm going to be ordering flavored coffee pretty much every day they offer it.  It's worth it to see that smile from Sunshine Boy.  He truly makes my day!


1 comment:

TeacherFromTN said...

I love this! I did inclusion science and social studies a couple of years ago. It was a BAD year, but that 45 minutes of inclusion with the CDC kids was the highlight of my day--every single day. Such joy and excitement about school and learning.