Avon Teachers 'Pay it Forward' in Sandy Hook Educator's New Organization

The Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher who hid her first graders in the bathroom during the Dec. 14 shooting massacre and told them she loved them has launched a “pay it forward” initiative for classes to help other classes in need.

Three Avon fourth-grade teachers – Christina Thavenius, Anne Marie Castle and Kate Matos of Pine Grove School – are on the ground floor of Sandy Hook teacher Kaitlin Roig’s new organization called Classes 4 Classes. Roig announced her mission Tuesday night on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer on the day the website went live.

“She (Roig) was all about how can we make something positive out of such a tragedy,” said Thavenius, who attended the University of Connecticut with Roig and her sister. “She wanted to find a way to pay it forward to someone else,”

Roig told Sawyer on ABC World News that her class and school received many teddy bears, toys, cupcakes and gifts of support from strangers worldwide after the shooting. So, she decided “I need to take this time to teach my students that when you get you have to give because that’s what ultimately makes our world a better place, and we’re going to find a class in the United States and we’re going to make them feel how we feel right now,” Roig told Sawyer.

Roig – who is the best friend of Thavenius’ sister – approached her in February looking for a group of 20 trusted teachers to pilot the project. Thavenius, of Avon, recruited Castle and Matos.

She said that the “basic goal was to find a class that was in need of something” and sponsor them to “help them out. Before the classes on the receiving end can accept the donation, they are required to help out another class, continuing the “pay it forward” mission.

Thavenius, who is on maternity leave until August, introduced the concept to her class in March. Her class has a goal of raising $1,725 through the Classes 4 Classes website to build a classroom library for her friend’s sixth-grade class at Promise Academy II in Harlem, NY. Lori Gibb is teaching her class while she is on leave and has been helping with the project.

“They were super excited about the opportunity to help other people,” Thavenius said.

She taught her students about “paying it forward” through the book, Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deeds about how a “young girl's good deed is multiplied as it is passed on by those who have been touched by the kindness of others,” Thavenius wrote on her project page.

Castle’s class is trying to raise $2,298.85 to buy a SmartBoard for a fourth-grade class at Burns Latino Studies Academy in Hartford. Matos’ class is sponsoring a TEC at Westwood High School class in Westwood, MA.

Thavenius told Pine Grove School Principal Gail Dahling-Hench, of Canton, about Classes 4 Classes a few weeks ago.

“Pine Grove teachers have decided to host a dress-down day and make a contribution to the website,” Dahling-Hench said, noting that teachers did a similar fundraiser after the tragedy, donating about $700 in gift cards to Sandy Hook Elementary School teachers for their classes.

She called Classes 4 Classes a “great concept,” excited that three Pine Grove teachers are involved.

“I think it speaks to the compassion and the outreach that I’ve seen many times in many ways through the staff at Pine Grove,” Dahling-Hench said. “They’re always interested in making our community stronger and doing outreach to various communities in order to provide enhancements to various aspects of society.”

After hearing about the shooting at another elementary school, Dahling-Hench said, “you couldn’t help but feel not only empathy but a connection to the school community as a whole and the impact of such a serious event.”

Pine Grove students were just being dismissed for a half day due to a pre-scheduled district-wide professional development day Dec. 14 when news broke about a shooting at Sandy Hook. Thavenius, who was getting updates on Roig’s situation through her sister, said that it was hard to get work done after learning of the tragedy. At that point, Thavenius was a month away from having a baby and being a first-time mom.

“I had my hand on my belly and tears dripping down my face,” Thavenius said.
She said she’ll never forget how third-grade teacher Virginia Conn put her hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

Thavenius said she felt for the teachers and students of Sandy Hook that day. She called her friend, Roig “the perfect representation for what good teachers should be like.”

“A lot of us, you would hope, would have reacted the same way she did,” Thavenius said.

Others classes from Connecticut – Mansfield, Greenwich, Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford – Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia are currently sponsoring classes in Bridgeport, Hartford, West Hartford, Ansonia, Stamford, Massachusetts, Alabama, New York, Virginia and Arizona schools.

People can donate to a specific project or Classes 4 Classes through PayPal or request to be a “caring class” on the organization’s website –  www.classes4classes.org.