It was a simple Facebook request:
Hello. We are teachers in El Paso. We would like to know if anyone is interested in sending us postcards to help our students know there is plenty of good in our world. As teachers, we may only be able to say so much. We think concrete messages of support would help us calm some fears. Any thoughts?
This was followed by two addresses:
You can send postcards here:
E. Flores
Hillside Elementary
4500 Clifton Avenue
El Paso, TX 79903
Teresa Garrett
Tom Lea Elementary
4851 Marcus Uribe Drive
El Paso, TX 79934
The request was followed by #ElPasoStrong.
El Paso has been in the news because of a mass shooting on August 3, at a Wal-Mart Supercenter near Cielo Vista Mall in eastern El Paso. The store was brimming with customers that day, many procuring back-to-school supplies.
In what was the deadliest mass shooting of 2019, 22 people perished, with 26 additional injured.
The alleged reason for the gunman’s rampage – racism.
Parentology phoned Hillside Elementary. Was the Facebook message real? Could we send postcards? Encourage our readers to do so?
A woman in the school’s administrative offices chimed up that, yes, the post was true. Elvira Flores is a teacher at Hillside and Teresa Garrett is a fourth-grade teacher at Tom Lea Elementary. Postcards would definitely help student morale, the women let us know. “We appreciate that very much,” she said. “Say thanks to everybody over there who’s helping out.”