It’s been a tough few years for the class of 2022 and understandably so. The last completely, COVID-free school year came in 2019, when the now-seniors were freshmen.
In 2020, school shut down and students were sent home in March. In 2021, students were only physically present in school every other day. Now, in 2022, students are back in school full-time, but they have to wear face coverings and COVID-19 variants still cast an ever-present shadow over the district.
One senior, seeing her fellow classmates struggling with the mental and emotional toll of the pandemic, decided to do something about it.
Starting work at the beginning of November, the senior, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid unwanted attention, wrote 98 individualized letters to each and every one of her fellow class of 2022 members.
The process took several weeks and multiple pens but finally, the week before winter break, the senior brought the letters to Assistant High School Principal John Spink, who made sure they got to the right people.
The senior filled each letter with words of encouragement - “You matter, I see you, I care for you,” - and happy memories pulled from their past 13 years together at Attica Central Schools.
“Mentally, everybody is kind of really struggling. I just hear it a lot in classes,” said the letter-writer. “A couple of my friends - I catch ‘em in the bathroom, crying. I’m like ‘Guys, what's up?’ One of the girls was like ‘I just feel like nobody cares.’ I’m like ‘Whoa, but I care.’ I know I can’t necessarily touch everybody and be there for everybody but I genuinely care for every single one of my classmates.”
Given how quickly her final year at Attica has been going by, the idea also held a personal attraction, the letter-writer acknowledged.
“This senior year is starting to hit me. I’m like ‘OK, I have six months left with all of my friends,’” she said. “I just felt like I really needed to let everybody know that somebody out there does care for them whether they know it or not.”
Writing so many letters, each one tailored to a specific student, was surprisingly easy, said the senior.
“There were a couple people I’m like ‘You know, I’m not really close with this person, I haven’t been with them since, like, first grade,’ but once I started writing, thoughts just started coming,” she said. “Even first grade I was like ‘I don’t know if you remember, but I remember when we did this in first grade.’ I had something for everybody. Some people were easier than others, but I didn't really struggle with anybody.”
While the letter-writer remained largely anonymous - some close friends did eventually figure out who’d authored their letters - she did enjoy watching some classmates read their letters and try in vain to figure out who’d written them.
“I was in lunch and there were three guys in my class and they had it, they were like ‘Who wrote this letter?’” the senior recalled. “They’re looking around, they're joking with their friend - ‘Kyle, did you write it?’ He’s like ‘No, I didn’t write it. Do you think my handwriting looks that good?’ I had butterflies in my stomach. I’m just like ‘Ugh, don't figure it out, I’m sitting right here.’”
One of the senior’s classmates even wrote back to say how much receiving a card had meant to him.
“One of my classmates wrote me a card, to anonymous, saying ‘You made my day, you made my year, I don't need to know who you are.’ I was like ‘Oh my gosh,’ crying. ‘This is awesome,’” said the senior. “And it was from the most unexpected kid. I never expected he was going to receive it that well and he did. I still have the card. I’m going to keep it forever.”
Ultimately, the senior said she wants her classmates to know that even though the pandemic has brought a lot of bad, they have people in their lives who care.
“My main message of the whole thing is there is somebody out there that cares and I genuinely care about each and every single one of my classmates whether I have classes with them, whether I’m close with them, if I’ve never even really spoken with them,” the senior said. “I genuinely care and if anything ever happened to them I would be there to help them.”