Hi, my name is Sasha, and I am a school counselor at Hefferan STEAM Elementary, located in Chicago's West Garfield Park neighborhood.

For a season usually full of happy excitement, this has been a tense and frustrating time at Hefferan Elementary. Unfortunately, we had to cancel our After School Programing (as well as outside recess) for the remainder of the year due to increased shootings within frightening proximity to our school. One of these reckless shootings tragically hit one of our 8th graders last week. Though he is thankfully recovering physically, he and our entire school community will carry the emotional trauma of this for much longer.

We are also going on winter break in a little over a week, and though we are all looking forward to the holidays and hopefully restorative time off, I fear for the students who live in our neighborhood and can’t have a break from it. That’s why I’m hoping to create art and game packages to send home with our kids, so they will have safe, indoor activities to help them enjoy the time away from school. I usually wouldn’t ask people for money, especially during the holidays, but if anyone would like to send a few dollars to help purchase supplies, it could help make this time memorable for our students.