Students at Sowams School are hoping their recent project will make a big difference in someone else’s life. 

The third-graders in Ashley Adamson’s and Rachel Lally’s classroom recently completed a community service project that benefits the Izzy Room at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. The students made pillows and wrote special notes that will be shared with the children at the hospital. They also collected dozens of games, puzzles and toys that they donated to the Izzy Foundation, which is a nonprofit whose mission is to design, fund and “IZspire” creative projects and programs for families whose children have cancer or other life altering medical conditions to live, laugh, love and play. 

“Rachel had this interest in sewing, and social emotional learning is a big focus in our classroom, in many classrooms. We weave that in daily,” Adamson said. “We thought this was a nice opportunity to pull together all of the different skills and activities we’ve done centered around social emotional learning, and they’ve talked a lot about how to help themselves and be the best version of themselves. This was a nice way to see the fruits of their own labor going to someone else.”

Lally said it is fun to sprinkle in hands-on activities for the students from time to time, 

“We work really, really hard, so we like to throw that in,” she said. “So, we decided, as 2024 rolled around, yes, we do some fun crafts in here, but wouldn’t it be nice to think of something outside of ourselves and do something for the community? So I contacted the Izzy Foundation and they were more than happy to have us help along.

“What (the students are) working on right now is notes, words of encouragement for the children who are in the room. They’ve all had a chance to hand-stitch a heart. And now they’re going to sew it on this fabric.”

On a recent Thursday afternoon, students completed various parts of the project. Some sewed their colorful pillows, some wrote heartfelt messages on small notecards, and some stitched a cut-out felt heart onto their pillows. 

Third-grader Hameedah Abioye said she was enjoying the project, “Because someone’s going to be happy when you give this to them.”

Lally looked at the pillow Hameedah was working on and commented on its color.

“Can I tell you something about the colors you chose? If you go into the Izzy Room and you see the color of the box … purple was Izzy’s favorite color. Izzy was a girl from this town, and she passed away when she was about three years old, and her favorite color was purple,” Lally said. 

Sowams School student Jackson Greene said the pillow project was a lot of fun.

“I think the best part is that the kids from the Izzy Foundation get to have something that they can play with, and things to enjoy,” Jackson said. “…I’ve started to sew my heart. I wrote a lot of things (on the notecard).”

Jackson shared the message he wrote: He said he hopes the kids from the foundation get to have a fun time with the toys that Sowams is giving them.

Graycia Battersby read the notecard she was including with her pillow: “Keep persevering. You can do anything you put your mind to. Stay strong and be you.”