JoCo kids send Parkland students 3,500 sweet notes of love on shooting anniversary
The boxes of chocolate bars adorned with notes from Kansas City-area schoolchildren were so heavy that almost a dozen Marjory Stoneman Douglas students had to help carry the load into their school building Tuesday.
Missy Pint of Lenexa had been planning this surprise for the Parkland, Fla., high school for weeks, ever since a close friend in Florida had told her how the community still reeled from the school shooting on Valentine’s Day last year that killed 17 students and staff.
With the anniversary of the tragedy approaching, Pint wanted to pass on messages of love for kids whom she saw firsthand still encounter picketers and police, news crews and crowds as they go to school each day.
“It was difficult to see that, but it made me really happy to know that even if it was just for a moment these kids were going to read this message and get a chocolate bar.”
Several years ago, when her children were in grade school, Pint had launched a similar project to bring Valentine’s Day candy to local homeless shelters and retirement centers.
“Valentine’s Day is a rough day for some people,” Pint said. “I know that some people feel excluded. … I just wanted to make sure no one felt left out.”
But it was after she met Parkland resident Jennifer Welker, whose son plays minor league baseball with Pint’s son, Riley, at spring training that Pint thought of relaunching the project specifically for Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, and including notes of hope and love with the candy.
She encouraged students she mentors through the Johnson County Parks and Recreation after-school program, as well as Sunflower Elementary, Blue Valley North, Shawnee Mission North and St. Thomas Aquinas, to design and write words of encouragement on a candy label for “The Sweet Note Project.”
The notes, some reflecting the age of the writer, were later applied to chocolate bars she bought with Welker in Florida.
“When the world seems like darkness there’s hope inside you of you. Your a treashore to the world.”
“You are rille pretty. You are the best.”
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
“You are brave.”
“Let your smile change the world. But don’t let the world change your smile.”
It was 5,000 labels in total, Pint said.
Pint flew to Florida this week, and the pair spent 18 hours applying labels to 400 pounds of chocolate.
They brought the bars to the school on Tuesday. Pint said the few students and administrators they met were wowed by the gesture. But she and Welker felt it would be more respectful to let school staff pass out the candy so as “not to be part of their story.”
She expected the student body to receive the “Sweet Notes” on Wednesday and Thursday.
“I read so many of these when I was in Florida. … I teared up. She teared up,” Pint said. “You just could not not feel the warmth from these children and how genuine they were about the words that they chose.”
While Pint said she delivered roughly 3,500 chocolate bars to Parkland students, she saved 2,000 for the Kansas City community.
On Thursday, she’ll visit retirement homes and homeless shelters with some Blue Valley North students to make sure others receive a special Valentine’s Day message.
She plans to continue the “Sweet Note” project next year.
“I couldn’t comprehend how this was all going to turn out,” Pint said. “I started with an idea and wasn’t sure how it was going to end. But it was perfect, everything from the kids’ words, what they wrote, to how the students received the bars and the gratitude that they felt.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2019 at 5:30 AM.
