Cal-Mum Elementary shares the love with veterans

   Cal-Mum Elementary School students have big hearts and they want the veterans of the United States military to know they are being thought of.

   At the annual Bedtime and Books day at school, each student made an individually designed Valentine message that will be delivered to the veterans at Canandaigua and Batavia veteran’s hospitals.

   Cal-Mum’s Elementary School Student Council sponsors the Bedtime and Books day, a focus on literacy that features several themed reading stations set up in the auditorium. The day is dedicated to appreciating reading time. Each class visited the auditorium where student council members read a book to them that corresponded to that station’s theme. Afterward, members of the Matthew Cleary Post Ladies Auxiliary helped the students create their Valentine. It was a daylong event that the children and the auxiliary members say is mutually enjoyable.

   Advisor to the Elementary School Student Council, Jayne Daley, says the students really enjoy the chance to interact with other students and with the community volunteers on this day. They are also very committed to showing the veterans their care and support.

   Student council members Adrianna Molisani and Claudia Haut were very excited to be a part of the project. They liked reading to their fellow students and were very eager to explain about the hundreds of Valentines made by students for the veterans, the girls said in between reading books to the others.

   In preparation for the day, Elementary Librarian Mary Burns, read age appropriate books to the students dealing with the concept of war and what it means to be a veteran and how family members deal with having loved ones in the military. The older students read Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, a story of two teenage boys involved in the Civil War. The primary students read Love, Lizzie: Letters to a Military Mom by Lisa Tucker McElroy. Burns also used artistic visuals to help the children understand the nation’s history of war. The photographs were purchased through a grant and included the historic scene of General George Washington crossing the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War and the famous Norman Rockwell depiction of freedom of speech.

   This is the second year that the ladies auxiliary has partnered with the elementary student council to support children’s literacy and further the connection between young students and community volunteers. In January 2008, the auxiliary and the students partnered for Bedtime and Books day and created six hand painted flag quilts that were delivered to recovering soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The cooperative project earned the Matthew Cleary Post Ladies Auxiliary national recognition.

   Auxiliary volunteers who spent the day at the elementary school say the Cal-Mum kids are terrific and they really enjoy spending the day with them.