To many, Valentine’s Day is a day of gift giving and fancy dinners. But Valentine’s means more than just the materialistic value of the gifts given, but the thoughts of love and friendship behind them.
According to legend, this holiday of love was inspired by a Roman priest in the third century named Valentine, who married couples in secret after Emperor Claudius II Gothicus banned marriages. Valentine was later executed on February 14, and in his final letter to his lover, the jailer’s daughter whom he helped regain sight, he wrote, “From your Valentine”
To celebrate Valentine’s Day’s love and friendship, Priscila Morgan, Spanish I and Spanish III Honors teacher at the Ninth-Grade Campus, was asked by a mother of one of her students, Levi, to send Valentine’s cards to an orphanage in Mexico.
“[Pontius] sent me an email, just asking if I would be interested in having my Spanish I and Spanish III students write Valentine’s cards for kids in the orphanage that her church volunteers with,” Morgan said. “And I said, yes, that was a great opportunity for my Spanish students to use the new language they’re learning, in a real life setting, and giving the kids in the orphanage something nice from their (the students’) part.”
The orphanage where the cards were sent is called the Rivers of Mercy Children’s Home. It is a non-profit, Christ-centered orphanage, and it helps children prepare for their future.
Rivers of Mercy is located near the border between Mexico and Texas, in Ciudad Juarez. Because it’s in Mexico, it operates differently from typical American foster schools.
“In Mexico, [children] stay in the orphanage until they feel capable to have a steady job, and if they don’t have family they don’t leave [until they are ready],” said Morgan.
Because of this custom, a wide age range of kids lives at the orphanage.
“The kids in this orphanage are from two years olds and even up to 21 years old,” Morgan said, “So, it was very fun to write letters in their native language, to their level of reading.”
Spanish I and Spanish III have widely different levels of writing, so Morgan decided to designate Spanish I students with writing letters for the younger kids and Spanish III with the older.Some of the Spanish III Honors students were native speakers and were able to write longer, more complex letters.
Morgan has roughly 160 students, and almost all of them wrote a Valentine’s card for the children at the orphanage in the last week of January. This meant that once the cards arrived, each child at the orphanage was able to have two or more cards.
“[Mrs. Pontius] picked them up the following week,” said Morgan, “and I know they left the week before Valentine’s, so the first week of February they sent them in the mail.”
“For me, it was a great opportunity to get my students involved in something that I believe in, which is caring for those in need,” Morgan said.
Morgan has always been a community helper and likes to volunteer at orphanages and with foster care systems. She volunteered at orphanages during her high-school-years in her hometown and fostered children with her husband.
Pontius also inspired Morgan to think and potentially make some plans for the future. An expansion that could do good in The Woodlands community, introducing more students to volunteering. This could lead to an increase in community connection and well-being.
“It would be nice, in the future, to communicate with other orphanages,” said Morgan. “That would be fun. Or we have a lot of kids in foster care in our area and all around us.”
