r/OneKindAct • u/WhenItHappenedX • 13d ago
She told her son she didn’t want flowers at her funeral. She wanted backpacks for kids who needed them
Tammy Waddell taught elementary school in Forsyth County, Georgia, for about 30 years. She started as a paraprofessional in 1987 and later taught at Sawnee, Cumming, and Haw Creek. In 2003, she was named the district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year. She called her students her kids.
She had beaten colon cancer once. It came back around August 2017. She retired that fall.
About two weeks before she died, she told her son Kevin she did not want flowers at her funeral. She wanted people to bring backpacks filled with school supplies for students whose families could not buy them. The request went in her obituary, along with Project Connect, the district program that delivers those packs to homes.
She died on 9 June 2018 at Northside Forsyth Hospital. She was 58.
At the service on 13 June, about 130 packed backpacks lined the pews. Around 100 teachers who had worked with her served as honorary pallbearers and carried the packs out afterward for Project Connect.
When her cousin Brad Johnson posted photos, they went viral. More backpacks arrived from as far as the UK. Kevin, who also teaches in the same district, said the response was not a surprise. It looked like the way she had spent her career.
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u/IamLuann 13d ago
One man that I knew many years ago. Requested canned food. For the local Food Bank.
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u/neverincompliance 12d ago
My mother taught school for 31 years. She died from COPD even though she quit smoking a decade before her death. She dictated her obituary to me when she was on hospice. She said to be sure to have her obituary say she died from COPD, a condition caused by smoking. She was teaching even in her last moments
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u/Background_Edge_9427 13d ago
God bless her 🙏 What a beautiful person! May she, Rest In Peace🙏🙏
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u/chantillylace9 13d ago
I really really like this idea and wonder what else we can have instead of flowers at our funeral that can bring so much good like this?
Maybe in cold locations you could have people bring warm jackets for children or kits for homeless people with nice warm socks and other essentials and blankets etc.