Serving the Children of Rockbridge County
By Lacy Rodriguez
On Mar. 20, members from the Young Single Adult Buena Vista 1st Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints took turns gathering in small, socially distanced groups at the Buena Vista family ward building to write letters of encouragement to the school children of the three local wards in the branch. Coming from Southern Virginia University, Washington and Lee, and the Virginia Military Institute, these young adults gathered under the guidance of Bishop Doug Cheney and his wife, Melanie.
Bishop Cheney first came up with the idea of letter-writing when he saw a Facebook post sharing the story of a young mother and her 7-year-old son. The son was “struggling with this whole school-at-home thing, and she [had this] moment where she thought, ‘he didn’t choose to do this, none of these kids did’, so she sat down with him, and she said, ‘you’re really a hero’. They had this real turning moment…and she just realized that’s what we need to be doing. We need to pay attention to them”.
While the initial idea was to create care packages for the children with the note included, it was discovered that the four primary presidents had already done that. However, the presidents suggested just writing letters, saying, “You know, what you’re really offering is college kids writing a note to the school kids. That’s the essence of this service project.”
When it came to setting up the project, Bishop Cheney says, “I got the permission of our Stake President first, called the bishops and got their permission, and then I contacted the four primary presidents.” Cheney says that deciding on the logistics was difficult at first, as there was the concern of sharing the children’s addresses. “We then agreed [the primary presidents] would send all the details to my wife and I, we would only give the young adults [the] first name, age, and gender, and then [Melanie and I] would address the envelopes, we would put our return address on them, and we would send them that way.”
But it was not just the Cheneys and primary presidents who helped in the creation and execution of the service project. “One member of the ward sat down, and on her iPad, just started making pictures [to decorate the letters with],” Cheney says. “[My wife and I] brainstormed a bunch of captions that could apply to [the] pictures, and I think that’s part of the fun of the project. Just pick a picture, pick a caption, and then write the note.”
Cheney continues, saying, “So, [the ward member] did the fronts, my wife put together all the card making materials, and I helped as usual with the cutting and driving. And then of course, those coming are really giving of themselves. This idea of writing a personal note to a kid sounds simple, but it’s a gift of yourself. You can’t buy that. So I think that’s really significant.”
Cheney hopes this service project will affect others. “I hope this just inspires people to think outside the box, and to do something,” Cheney says. “I would be very pleased if this particular project was replicated for other school kids of whatever demographic, or if it just prompts people to think of similar things [they] can do.”
Cheney explains,“I think this pandemic is teaching us to serve at a distance, which isn’t a bad thing, because even when the pandemic is over, and we’re back to serving in-person…I think that there are those who can only be reached at a distance. And if this increases the scope of what we’re mindful of, and just makes us more capable going forward, then this pandemic will have taught us something. It will have lifted us, and not just tortured us.”
