This is our third year of having a staff writing challenge during the month of March. I remember our first year, asking our custodian at the time, Al, if he would write a slice. Reluctant at first, he pulled through and I still remember the pride on his face, sharing his piece with our community. Al’s success gave me confidence to approach another custodian, Prentice. Prentice originally said, “no one would want to read about my life.” While I told him I disagreed, our conversation must have stuck with him because a few days later, there was a handwritten piece on my desk waiting to be shared. Last year, Mike replaced Prentice who moved on to a new opportunity. When I told him about the writing challenge and his predecessors, he a bit uncomfortable, but ultimately agreed to write something and he did.

This year, we have a few new custodians at our school and I haven’t bonded with any enough to approach them about writing. I thought our custodian writing streak would end. Until one day as I was walking down the stairs after a PD session with our third grade team. Jeff stopped me right in the middle of the stairwell. “Are you Ms. Carey? I saw this thing about writing…”

Jeff may not have known me, but I sure knew him. Jeff was a student at our school many many many years ago. Earlier this year, he took it upon himself to take over a forgotten bulletin board the connects our fourth grade hallway to the fifth grade wing. Jeff began to add photographs to the board and eventually a piece of writing explaining how our school used to have a dark room, where he learned to develop film. Soon the board was bursting with pictures.

Then in the winter, the pictures were gone and replaced with a single snowflake. Magically, each day new snowflakes appeared, made by students, inspired by Jeff. Soon, the entire board was filled with these unique creations. Currently, the board has two kites with a handwritten piece of paper explaining how we can make your own kites…all initiated by Jeff.

As I stood with Jeff on the stairs, wondering where this conversation would go, he handed me a piece of paper containing three seperate paragraphs. Jeff proceeded to explain the significance of each piece. “Read it, ” he said to me. “Let me know if it will work.” I assured him that it looked perfect.

Just yesterday, I saw Jeff in the hallway. “Was it ok?” he asked. I scanned my brain to place his comment. He was talking about his writing.

“It was beautiful,” I told him as I let him know that we had scheduled his writing to go live this week.

Jeff’s slice went live on our school blog today, continuing our custodian writing streak. Jeff is so much more than our school custodian. While he is very good at taking care of our school, he also takes care of us in other important ways. He is quietly looking for ways to inspire and give back to every member of our community. I’m so glad he was moved to write with us this month!