At Blackstone Valley Prep (BVP), we often call our community our “team & family.” We say “team” because we believe that working together (staff, scholars, and families) is the most effective way to ensure our scholars’ successes. We say “family” because we truly care for eachother. We have seen time and time again how our community can come together in difficult times to support one another and over the past week, we saw it again.
Before we returned from our winter break we received news that one of our 10th grade scholars, Abigail Garcia, was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension, a disease that took her mother’s life several years ago. Today, Abigail is hospitalized in Boston waiting for a lung transplant. Almost immediately after we received this difficult news families were reaching out to us. Not just to share the news, but to offer support any way they could. 4 days later a gofundme page set-up to support Abigail’s family has raised over $7,000. Seeing the support for Abigail and her family from the BVP and greater community has left us grateful. It’s been truly moving to see our community engage so quickly to help.
Today, as a sign of our collective support, we invited everyone to #WearPurpleForAby. Purple is Aby’s favorite color so we set out to fill social media with purple to lift her and her family’s spirits. Funds raised from today’s school dress down will be used to support Aby’s family as well as other families that may face difficult times in the future.
We can’t say it enough – thank you. Thank you for showing us the impact our team & family can make.
And to Abby, you got this and we are sending you love from your team and family!
In case you missed them, take a look below to see a sampling of the photos posted for the #WearPurpleForAby campaign that is trending on Twitter today.
