B.I.O.N.I.C. Posters Impacting the World
With schools starting back up this semester and COVID numbers surpassing any before, schools have been met with a new struggle during this continuing pandemic. School staff members are getting COVID at alarming rates, but there are not enough substitute teachers or other staff to cover for their sick colleagues. And then strange weather phenomena are occurring devastating communities across America – tornadoes ravaging 10 states, and the worst ever wildfire in Colorado destroying almost 1,100 homes in a metropolitan area which was simply unheard of before. Families are struggling to make sense out of all this with parents and kids struggling in new ways than ever before.
Our B.I.O.N.I.C. Teams are continuing to spread hope in their schools and across the world. So to encourage you, each week we want to start sharing some stories of how our B.I.O.N.I.C. Team students are reaching out (saying “Believe It Or Not I Care”) to make a difference in this world. The stories can give you some encouragement and will hopefully inspire you of ways you can encourage others around you, too! B.I.O.N.I.C. Teams in schools (elementary through college worldwide) do not always look the same, but I will share what some schools are doing.
We will start off by telling you about our B.I.O.N.I.C. posters that we send to schools/communities that experience a tragedy. This is at the forefront of my mind because of the recent fires in Boulder after which we created and delivered a poster to Monarch High School that was left standing in the midst of the destruction. When there are tragedies like this, some of our B.I.O.N.I.C. Teams in schools send a poster to let the other schools/communities know their hearts, thoughts, and prayers are with them!
At one school a few years ago there was a soccer player who collapsed and died from a heart condition at the end of a game. So, the B.I.O.N.I.C. Team at Pomona High School where Sandy Austin, our B.I.O.N.I.C. Founder was a school counselor, made a poster like the one attached and put it in the cafeteria during lunch for students, staff, and visitors to sign. Then they mailed the poster. A week later one of the Pomona B.I.O.N.I.C. Team students came running into Sandy’s office saying, “Ms. Austin you wouldn’t believe what happened”! Sandy couldn’t to hear.
The student continued, “I got a Facebook friend request last night from an old friend. We were born a week apart and were next-door neighbors. We became best friends. In first grade she moved, and I have not heard from her since then. When I accepted her Facebook friend request last night, she asked if we could talk on the phone.”
She was so excited as she was talking that she could barely take a breath, but then continued, “My friend said, ‘I go to the high school that your school sent the poster to. I stood in the cafeteria reading it, but then when I saw your name and comment on the poster, I started to cry. The soccer player who died was my boyfriend, and I was starting to think about suicide because I missed him so much. When I saw your name, I knew I was going to be okay.’” Not knowing that her friend was at that school, our B.I.O.N.I.C. student’s simple signature on that poster, saved her long-lost friend’s life!
Now you see why we have been doing poster outreaches on our B.I.O.N.I.C. Teams for 17 years. I will share other powerful stories, but first you are probably wondering where we got the idea for the posters? It came from Sandy’s experience when she was one of the most involved counselors with the Columbine tragedy. Columbine was in the district where she was a school counselor. Sandy had student taught at Columbine 17 years earlier at the beginning of her education career, so the tragedy pierced her heart because she had coached with Dave Sanders – the teacher who was killed that day.
We’ll share more about all of this on Thursday. Until then…