Rutherford B. Hayes High School

The experience was worthwhile and unique. This project was a fine companion and went well in conjunction with our study of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Students appreciated connecting literature, history, and their own personal lives in ways conducive to both academic and individual interests and curiosities.

MY OWN PERSONAL STORY –

“We’ll dip me in mustard!” laughed by floral-print shirted Grandmother Laura whenever she found amusement amidst the hills and valleys of life.

Coca-Cola in hand, oak-carved ivory-handled cane leaning up against her chair, she would admonish all within ear shot to vote, even “if you have to walk barefoot and pregnant through the Kentucky mud to do so, or skip through the fancy gutters in Manhattan!” When she said “fancy gutters,” she’d raise her open deer-eyes to the ceiling of her home and extend both hands in a lah-di-dah-I’m-fancy-look-at-me pose. For Grandma Laura, participation in life was requisite, and voting was just another way of having some say in the machinations of what is and what will be. Thanks to her, I was raised to be conscious of both having and using a voice to change not just your corner of the world, but all places you can touch.