Counsel General Richard & Mrs. Hanson

One of the things I love about living in Woodbury is that socially there are few generational gaps. 

I have friends of all ages. Mr. & Mrs. Richard Hanson live in Woodbury. I bet besides ranking in the top of all of his classes, Hanson was such a football star, that two professional teams offered contracts.

I think he should have been President of the United States. His focus is now raising community awareness for the (woodburyfoundation.org). 

They have lots of fun, meaningful and purposeful goals for Woodbury—I hope you will check them out if you haven't already.

But that's not Hanson's only contribution to our Woodbury City of Dreams.  

Not too long ago, I read one of the Patch's headlines where the Woodbury Foundation partnered up with Habitat for Humanity from Aug 29 to Sept. 2.  Colleagues of mine from Woodbury Senior Living, Kathy Dunleavy and Angela Regan spent 8 hours sweating bullets—worked hard labor. Serves them right!!  (They loved it). 

I digress... I received a package from Diane and Dick Hanson and thought about their contribution to Ramey US Coast Guard school, here in Puerto Rico and the little bridge they are helping us build. The package was a 3M Gift Box.  

I've been on a Math and Science kick recently and want all the children in the school desire to always want to know and understand more. (That's how I think we should all live our lives.)

In fact, I'm going to beat the dickens out of them until they admit to me that they love it. By golly, I think this will work.

I already torturing a kid with a ruler as you'll see. I warn those little kids that I am Atom, the Magnificent. The Unbeatable. I am more than 100 times stronger than YOU and without me... well, I'm an unstable character with a very long history (this last part really gets the children scared, working & achieving my goals).

In order to motivate (& manipulate, but do not let anyone else know), I had to devise some plan. I needed posters that 'Popped', grabbed your attention, and stuck in your brain. I had to study my audience (oh my goodness, difficult to study: 7 to 10 years olds. They dislike sitting.) 

No money in school budgets for large notice boards. No money needed with my box of tricks from the Hansons. This gave us a wonderful opportunity to use our brains. 

Temperatures here averaging 95 degrees and the other day, 80% relative humidity (usually a little lower, but that's a lot of vapor). Modelling clay, different tapes I've tried, ticky-tac have not not held up in this climate. Hanson's box of tricks gave me all of the tools. 

It was MAGIC and the posters, some are 15 feet long, are still hanging due to products from 3M.

This gesture created an atmosphere of goodwill and high spirits.  The wee children were involved. Little Leonardo de Vinci's all now boasting about their creativity. It just created a wee spark! Instead of fostering mathematical thinking, & the magic of math, they all now want to be artists! 

Finally, my 7 year old had some suggestions for me when I told him I would be concentrating & working with 3rd and 4th Graders.

"Mom, when you teach, you have to go to other children, you cannot just stay and help one kid."   

I march Ronan to the Library daily and he knows I'm stuck on him for the entire time until homework is done—he is right, what kinda teacher is that?  

I know ya'll in Woodbury seamlessly blend leaders in the worlds of arts and letters, politics, and finance, as well as family, children, and grandchildren and devoted friends, but know too the Hanson family, your little bit of goodness is hitting this part of the world too.

But this could be all misery to a little 7 year old. My little Einstein is not quite on board... yet!