Evaners

Evan's class is learning about economic activity. One of their projects was to think of ideas for products they could design and build using mostly recycled materials. Then they had a class fair where they sold the products to their classmates and unsuspecting parents. Finally, one morning they visited Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade store, and got to spend their hard earned cash from the class fair (wow - "fair" isn't a word that I use regularly, and I used it in two different ways in this sentence).

Evan's team of 5 were called the Evaners. Other teams had more business-like names like Austin Pencil Factory. When asked he unabashedly explained that Roberto, he and Ava voted for that name, so Malena and Sidney had to go along with it. They decided to make journals out of cereal box cardboard. They sold them for a buck each. Vivian showed him the basic design and also made them some miniature diaries that they sold for 50 cents. Somehow they made almost 50 bucks. So each of them headed into Ten Thousand Villages with almost $10 burning a hole in their pockets. They went there the day before Valentine's Day. Because it's next door to us, I dropped in on them to say hello to Evan.

On Valentine's Day the kids exchanged their gifts. Vivian had created a very thoughtful word cloud for Evan with words and phrases like Weird, Fast Reader, Annoying, Kauai, Intelligent, Good Roller Blader, and Amazing. Evan had bought Vivian a heart shaped stone from TTV (I'm tired of typing in Ten Thousand Villages) which said Smile. And he bought another one that said Strength for Jo. And small chocolates for each of us, including two for Vivian. His friends had bought honking big fair trade chocolate bars for themselves. He had spent all his money (he had 53 cents left in change) on us and had to budget his purchases very carefully.  We are pretty darn proud of what both the kids did for each other. 

Here is a picture of their Valentine's Day loot from school. The smaller pile with the water bottle is Evan's. Clearly Vivian's school is less bothered about the kids' sugar intake (but their school lunch is probably healthier and is chef prepared on campus).

Peeking out from under Evan's pile, under the shark thing, you can catch a bit of a card that says To and From. It was the only personalized Be My Valentines type card in either pile. My friend and co-room-parent explained how it went down - she was in Evan's class during the card/gift exchange.

E (to the young lady who gave him the card): "M - what is this word?"
M: "Oh - it says handsome."
E: I think the spelling is wrong. I can't even read your card."
M: "My card says - Evan, you are awesome and handsome and I have a crush on you."

Girl standing next to M: "But didn't you say you had a crush on someone else too?"
M (matter of factly): "Yes - I have a crush on Evan, Jack and Leo."

Happy Valentine's Day to you all. I wish M the very best in life and hope that her spirit doesn't wither into the dreary desert sands of conformity and adulthood. The world does need a lot more of M.

ps. corrections from JoEllen - the keeper of my memories: Strength for Vivian, Smile for Jo, 2 chocolates for Arun because he didn't get a stone, and 3 cents left in change. ;)