B.I.O.N.I.C. Posters Impacting Lives Globally
Our posters also encourage schools on the other side of the globe! In 2015 there was a shooting at a café in Paris. I asked our French teacher at Pomona High School where I was a school counselor and in charge of our B.I.O.N.I.C. Team at the time, how to write out the words in French on the poster. She wrote it out for me, but also said, “Sandy can I have my first-year French students make cards to send with the poster so they can practice their French?” I loved the idea and of course, I said yes!
So, I contacted the French Consulate asking which school in Paris was closest to the shooting. They were so moved that we wanted to do that and said they would give the poster and our students’ cards to the Mayor of Paris to have him hand-deliver them to the school. A month later, we received three big envelopes from that Paris school. Their students made cards for us in English to practice their English! They even asked our students to friend them on social media, and I think several are still in touch six years later.
In 2011 there was a tsunami in Japan that devastated the island. I was a counselor at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood, Colorado and our B.I.O.N.I.C. Team wanted to send a poster. We had a Japanese foreign exchange student at GMHS, so I asked her how to write out in Japanese the words “Children of Tokyo” and our other sentiments on the poster. She was so touched that we wanted to reach out to her country. I asked her if there was something more that we could do. She said that in the Japanese culture 1,000 peace cranes mean a wish for goodwill.
Our Parent/Teacher Conferences were that week, and we asked our Japanese student if she could be at a table in the cafeteria to teach students, parents, and staff how to make the paper anime cranes. Then we sent the cranes with the poster to the school most impacted by the tsunami that was still standing. She got tears in her eyes when she saw the box of the cranes with the poster, knowing her country would be soo encouraged by getting the box from our school on the other side of the world.
Internationally we have also sent a poster to schools in Germany and Rio de Janeiro that experienced shootings. We also sent one to Haiti after their massive earthquake several years ago.
We don’t only send them to schools. We have also sent them to a grocery store in Arizona where there was a shooting. A week later we received an e-mail from someone who lived in the area thanking us for reaching out a state away to share our concern, comfort, and condolences. We also sent them to a WalMart in Westminster, Colorado, a theater in Aurora, Colorado, a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a nonprofit group in Arvada, Colorado that experienced shootings.
Why do we send these posters? When young people hear about tragedies at other schools/communities, they want to do something but do not know what. As you have seen in these posts about our posters, a simple signature on a poster can save a life or at the very least encourage schools and communities in knowing that people are thinking of them during difficult times.
That’s what all our B.I.O.N.I.C. Team outreaches do for students who are new, sick, hospitalized, or bullied, and for those who lose loved ones or experience tragedy. For seventeen years we have been encouraging kids, giving hope, and letting kids know people care about them. Our students learn these life skills that they continue the rest of their lives to impact their families and communities for generations to come.