Letters From Foster 'Grandma' Bring Joy To JQA Second Graders

Press release from Deer Park School District:

Jan. 17, 2021

Despite the need for social distancing, Deer Park’s John Quincy Adams Primary School has creatively found a new way to safely engage its students with the school’s “grandparents” as part of the foster grandparent pen pal program. Foster grandma “Miss Florence” connected with second graders in Jackie Stein and Ashley Varney’s classroom by sending individual hand-written notes.

“It is bringing our class such joy to be able to connect with Miss Florence,” Stein said. “We were connected with her this year, and she has already sent us many emails about herself. When we had virtual instruction the few days before Christmas, my students typed questions and information about themselves in our chat box and Mrs. Varney sent it over to Florence, who used to work as a systems analyst and is very savvy on computers. She has told us that this is bringing such light to her life and she truly enjoys hearing about what we are doing. We are going to continue writing to her, but we may go the email route since it took her a very long time to pen all of the individual letters to our students.”

“We have been continually impressed and surprised by how much happiness corresponding with Miss Florence has brought us all,” Varney said. “When we received our first real letters, they arrived in individual envelopes on beautiful gold sparkly stationary. Each child’s letter was addressed with either Master for the boys or Miss for the girls. Miss Florence is an exceptional woman, and she sparked discussions and taught the children to find out more about new things. We are looking forward to planning a time to meet over Zoom.”

This press release was produced by Deer Park School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.