I spent last Saturday — the 21st — at the Mt. Pleasant Elementary Centennial Celebration. I was there representing the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter, where I work, as well as NH Hunger Solutions, an organization determined to end food insecurity and hunger in our state.
I would have gone to the Centennial even if I was not working at the event. My daughter Lucy went to Mount Pleasant; I was a member of the Mount Pleasant PTO during all the time she was there; and one of the joys of my life was arranging programs for the children at Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant is where I got to meet and make connections with my neighbors in the North End. Mt. Pleasant is more than a neighborhood school; it is a community hub made up of the most dedicated and compassionate staff I have ever known.
I was worried about the centennial at first. When I was packing up my car with chairs and a table and the Soup Kitchen’s brochures, it was looking gloomy. I knew it was a rain-or-shine event, but I wanted it to be a nice day, because I know how hard it is to have big events during bad weather.
But when I got up on Saturday morning it was pouring.
Pouring. Not a sun shower. I was displeased, but I’ve done outdoor events in the rain and they can be as successful as good weather events. So, as I live close to the school, I drove my car up, unloaded it, drove back home and walked back to the school.
When I went back to the school, I saw the big white tent on the lawn through the rain, but when I got there, I was ushered into the school. I had a great table location in the library, and as soon as I got set up, the fun began.
I saw people I had not seen in years — retired teachers, parents I served on the PTO with, and kids that I helped crossed the street when I was a crossing guard. There were also people from other organizations that the Soup Kitchen works with, like PAL and the Front Door Agency. I was giving out pencil cases containing instructions on how to sign up for SNAP benefits, the Soup Kitchen’s brochure, NSKS gel bracelets, coloring pages, and a brochure for S.C.A.R.E., a non-profit we work with to get free Halloween costumes to every child that needs one. S.C.A.R.E. (which stands for Second-hand Costume Annual Redistribution Effort) recycles old Halloween costumes. Kids gets costumes! Nothing goes into the landfill! Everybody wins.
It was a great time. The school looked great, there were tons of interesting people to talk to (some I already knew; others whom I’d just met) and happy kids everywhere, eating cotton candy and ice cream. For me, it was another reminder of how important neighborhood schools are to their neighborhoods.
Schools are not just where our kids are educated. They are where they first enter social situations outside of the home. For our family — two white people raising a person of color — we could not have chosen a better place to live. Mt. Pleasant is one of the diverse schools in the city, with a staff that is so clued into issues of race that I never worried for a moment about Lucy while she was in school there. Lucy loved Mt. Pleasant and I loved having my daughter there. I loved being able to walk her to school when she was little and I loved her being able to walk home from school by herself when she was older. I loved that she had friends from all backgrounds.
I hope that the next generation of children in the North End of Nashua get to attend Mt. Pleasant, so that they can experience the same advantages.