The spirit of giving is like a sock of coins

Friday, Dec. 19, 2014

I was privileged to speak at the Dec. 1 Spiritus Donorum dinner at Juan Diego Catholic High School, and I’d like to share in this column the comments I made there.

The motto of Juan Diego Catholic High School is Spiritus Donorum, which translates to “The Spirit of Giving.” As a graduate of Juan Diego, this motto often comes back to me, especially during the holiday season.

 As I was reflecting on these words and my life, I came up with a symbol of what Spiritus Donorum means to me. It is a sock full of coins! 

I’ll get to that at the end of my story, but back to my reflections.

I realized that giving has been a beautiful cycle in my life, in which I have been both the recipient and the giver.

I have been blessed to receive lots of love, support, and opportunities in my life, but three special gifts have led me to continually live out the Spirit of Giving. 

The first gift I received was the opportunity to be a student at Juan Diego. Without the generosity of the scholarship fund that Mr. Skaggs provided, I would not have been able to attend school there because my family could not have afforded it. 

Before going to Juan Diego, I attended a public school and was accustomed to being one of the few Catholics in the whole student body. 

It was as a student at Juan Diego that I began to learn more intimately the beauty of my faith and truly feel what it was like to be part of a community driven by a common mission. 

Every day of high school, I was surrounded by teachers who truly cared about me, friends who understood me, and coaches who challenged me to realize my potential. 

The Juan Diego community made me fall in love with Catholic education and motivated me to study education so that I could be a teacher and give my students encouragement and support, just like my teachers had given me.

This decision led me to attending a tiny Catholic university in Memphis, Tenn. called Christian Brothers University. There, I received my second gift, which was forming a relationship with the De La Salle Christian Brothers. The Brothers commit their lives to providing a Christian education to all, especially the poor. It was from their example that I discovered that teaching is not just a profession, it is a way of life. 

I learned from them that a great education does not start with the right books or the fanciest lesson plans; it starts with first knowing your students and forming a real connection with them. I was so inspired by the many life lessons I received from the Brothers that after graduation I decided to give two years of my life as a volunteer teacher at one of their all boys middle schools in Rhode Island.

And that decision led me to my third gift, which was the time that I had with my students at The San Miguel School in Providence, R.I. I taught 6th grade math and 7th and 8th grade science to boys who were high-risk and from the most dangerous and poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the state. 

Every day was definitely a challenge, but every day was worth it because I was able to witness students who were referred to our school for behavior, financial, and academic reasons grow into young men who were excited about school, respectful of themselves and each other, and determined to be successful in life. 

And this is where this sock comes into the story.

Each year during Lent our school would raise money for a fellow Christian Brothers school in Eritrea, which is in eastern Africa. The boys would host bake sales and certain days were designated as dress down days for a $2 donation. For 40 days the students would do all they could to raise $900, which would pay the tuition of three students for one school year. 

My second year in Providence, we were still short of reaching our goal with a few days to go. A fifth grader excitedly walked in one morning and came to me with something he was hiding up his coat arm. I greeted him and asked what he was hiding. He proudly pulled out a sock that was jingling with coins, and told me he had been saving up his money for the past few weeks so that he could help other kids go to a school like the one he goes to. 

He told me, “Ms. Almanza, I just want those students to get a chance like I am getting here.” 

I will never forget how this fifth-grader worked so hard at saving his money, and although it wasn’t a lot, he was proud and enthusiastic to give what he was able to. 

That really is Spiritus Donorum for me – being appreciative of the many gifts I have received and eagerly giving back what I am able to.