Two El Paso teachers asked for notes to comfort their students. They received thousands
Two El Paso teachers put out a request to bring comfort to their students after the mass shooting in a Walmart rocked their community. It was answered by the thousands.
Teresa Garrett, a fourth grade teacher at Tom Lea Elementary School, and Elvira Flores, a fourth grade teacher at Hillside Elementary School, posted to Facebook asking for postcards "to help our students know there is plenty of good in the world.
“As teachers, we may only be able to say so much. We think concrete messages of support would help us calm some fears," Garrett and Flores said in the post, which has since been deleted because of the overwhelming response.
That post, published in a private Facebook group, had been shared 1000 times, ABC News Radio reported.
A post shared by EPISD (@episdschools) on Aug 16, 2019 at 12:57pm PDT
The calendar for El Paso Independent School District, to which both schools belong, shows classes resumed on Aug. 12, just days after the Aug. 3 mass shooting in which a gunman murdered 22 people.
“People are sending us postcards, letters, messages and even items for our kids,” Garrett said in a district news release. “It’s just proof that the world is populated with wonderful individuals who care about people, even if they don’t know them personally.”
Garrett added in a Facebook post that she had read every card and letter that had been sent, and that she would be distributing the cards to other elementary schools around El Paso.
"I wish I could express how you all have made me feel as well as my students," she said in the post.
USA TODAY has reached out to the school district and Garrett for comment.
Follow Elinor Aspegren on Twitter: @elinoraspegren
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: El Paso: Thousands of postcards sent to students at teachers' request
