SHOWING LOVE AT CHRISTMAS AND BEYOND

WRITTEN BY HILARY SHERLOCK  - NOTE FROM LESLIE WAN

HILARY SHERLOCK SAYS................

In December, I asked two of our older students as we prepared for Christmas, "What can we do to show love at Christmas?” Their responses, “You can help clean the house" and "When your Auntie is going out to shop you can go with her to carry the load”  Very profound! So, to all those who have shown their love to us over the past year and who have helped to carry the load – many, many thanks to all of you.

Christmas at STEP is always a special time, a time to celebrate and reflect, to catch up with old friends as we sell Christmas cards, and to enjoy all the special visits and treats.  One special visit was from one of our past student who is now 33 years old. How lovely it was to spend a little time with her.  Her visit made me realise that with our staff changes, only a few of us remember the early days of STEP when we resided in the Church Hall.  How far we have moved from then, both physically and functionally.

While in our past blogs we have spoken about our community, our space and all those who support us, we have not introduced members of our team who make it all possible.  Two of the longest serving members are – Auntie Marcia and Auntie Junetta.  Both members of our staff have been with STEP from the early days and are part of the fabric of our school.  Together we have grown and changed and sometimes, we talk about memories of past children and happenings as members of a family often do. 

Auntie Junetta

Auntie Junetta began her career with STEP as a teaching assistant. Later, she went on to do a degree at U-Tech and came back to be the teacher in charge of the junior students.  She intuits the needs of the children, notices and takes delight in the smallest accomplishment of our children. She is also an instinctive nurse who can take an accurate temperature without a thermometer. 

Auntie Marcia

Auntie Marcia of “always late” fame, has a special gift for finding the hidden treasure in children who require our maximum assistance.  These two valuable members of our team, help to ensure the continuity of our approach, and remind us that our strength, is only made possible by the contributions of each member. 

As in any family, there are adjustments to be made when new members are added.  New energy and insights help us to bring new growth and re-motivate all of us.  However,  we also have to realize that our new staff has not benefited from all the in service training we have done in the past, and sometimes we need to go back to the basics. As such, while we continue with our training on new procedures, and embrace new concepts in teaching and care, we also are going back to the basics to make sure that everyone has the same concepts and understanding. It serves as a reminder to us all that we need to have a refresher moment. Training is an ongoing process at STEP and we have recommitted ourselves to more training, but it also serves as a means for us all to re-acquaint ourselves with best practices, and bonds staff over why we do what we do, and how to do it in the best possible ways.   

Ambassador Ariel Fernandez

A fond farewell is in order for Ambassador Ariel Fernandez from Argentina who became a friend of our school during last year's World Cup football celebrations. He visited us many times, introduced us to empanadas, and was always very supportive. He has now returned to Argentina and while we wish him well in his new posting, we will miss him. As we say here - Walk good Ambassador Fernandez, as the children wave goodbye to you.  

    

Thank you to Mr Matuschka 

As we enter the New Year with all our plans and hopes, we want to acknowledge the passing of Alexander Matuschka, the CEO of the Digicel International Group.  Mr Matuschka visited our school on his very first visit to Jamaica, and became personally involved in our work.  As a result of that visit he personally decided to sponsor a child himself, and did not solely limit his involvement to a financial one.  Mr. Matuschka kept in touch with us, and periodically inquired about “his little one’s" progress.  We will surely miss him and we join the Digicel community in offering our condolences to his friends, family and the 
Digicel group. 

Mr. Matuschka was a kind man with a golden heart who in one visit to our school, grasped how important our work was, and decided to personally commit to seeing that another child had the opportunity. That pretty much says it all about Mr. Matuschka.

 

 

Leslie Wan says..............

We are ever grateful for being given the honor and joy of working with our children and the staff, who lovingly care for our children and want the best for them. So many times we are reminded by visitors to STEP how much they share our dedication to special needs children and specifically OUR work and school efforts. For that, we are blessed. It is not a surprise that once someone has stepped  into our school, they return each year (or more), because it does their heart good. I recently sat with a group of folks (Boston College alumni) who have visited us from abroad every year for the last 5 years or so. One of them said that this school is contagious with kindness, and the joy they get every time they visit makes their whole trip! One admitted that their family hears all about the children of STEP  (perhaps too many times for the family's patience). They said what comes across is smiles, smiles of children and smiles of caregivers. These smiles will brighten their year till the next visit. In some ways, that is what this blog is about, keeping all the people in our circle (here and abroad) in the loop, as we also let others know, about the wonder of our children, and the blessings of the general special needs community. To our people - high 5 to all of you from all of us, and from one of our students who loves to blow kisses, one of those too. Our children's world gets bigger and brighter thanks to all those who believe in them and our school.  

      
We always are grateful for those who believe and share with us. Thank you to:

1. CAC Foundation and Pacers Running club for their continued support to our curriculum enhancement and means to engage our children in ways they love!!

2. AAA Financial: Thank you as always for the Christmas treat provided to our children each year of lunch, and their treat bags. Each child went to their respective places with a special reminder of your care for them. In addition we received 2 terrific and powerful fans to move that air in our hot Jamaica school days. God bless them, they stayed and chatted with the children and even helped to feed a couple children their lunch. That is HEART!

3. Thank you to Cannonball Cafe and Loshusan Supermarket for allowing space to sell our Christmas cards. They always come thru to help us in our selling push. 

4. National Continental Bakery - for including us with a booth in their Jamaica Made Christmas to sell our cards. We always appreciate being included in this inspired Jamaican event. 

5. Thank you to all those who bought our Christmas cards and helped us to sell our Christmas cards. Our major fundraiser each year brings out the best in all our people and we soooo appreciate you all.