Well, my wife recently roped me into helping her out at her school again. This time it was more than just moving some furniture or books around because she thought it was time for a change. Though, it did involve moving books and other belongings it was for a very good cause. My wife and another teacher at Nelson Elementary had headed up a drive to collect books and used sporting equipment for local children in need. The drive was part of the “Super Kids-Super Sharing” program put on by the NFL and the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee.
My job was to drive over to Nelson, load up the truck and transport all of the donations to Jackson Heights Park, here in Tampa, where all of the items were being collected. I can not take all the credit for loading the truck. I did have help from Kelly and 6 of her 5th grade students, who were hand picked to take part in the day’s activities. I must also add that I did have a slightly alternative motive for participating in the charity drive and that was that since my son, Jacob, is enrolled in kindergarten at Nelson Elementary I was able to sign him out so that he and I could spend the day together.
My son rode with me, while Kelly transported her students in our van. Once we arrived at Jackson Heights we were greeted by other volunteers who helped unload the truck and bring the items inside the gymnasium. Inside the gym, besides a boat load of kids from other elementary/middle schools from around the County, there were also about 20 boxes that were 4 foot high. These boxes were being used to sort the books into different reading levels. Everyone took part in sorting the books but the kids were anxious to go back outside where there were four different stations setup. The different stations involved holding a football and running around obstacles, doing some fancy footwork and then completing a pass to a “dummy”, running through a rope grid and then catching a pass and the last one was set up where the kids were able to race each other through an obstacle course.
Before Jacob and I headed out, a little early I might add, he took part in a group picture with all of the students from Nelson. The group picture also included Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ running back Warrick Dunn, which made all of the kids even more excited and since the Bucs are Jacob’s favorite team you can imagine how excited he was.
When it was all said and done everyone had a great time and it was all for a very good cause. I believe it is necessary for all of us to do what we can for our community and to teach our kids the same. Even if you don’t have a lot of free time on your hands every little bit counts and if you happen to have fun while doing it then all the better.
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