A crisis unfolded in the late evening hours of December 16.
Although it should be acknowledged that this was the type of deeply personal household crisis that almost every family can unfortunately relate to.
After Heather Anderson’s mother picked her up from work—having just taken the children to the Franklin Middle School choral concert—Anderson discovered that her two-year-old son Ollie’s beloved stuffed animal, Wally, had been left behind in the auditorium.
As anyone who has ever parented a two-year-old knows, this was not a good situation.
“Wally is a limited-edition stuffed animal of Wawa’s goose mascot, and not something you can just buy at the store,” said Anderson. “My son has never slept without his cherished lovey since he was born.”
They decided to return to the school and look for him, which led to Anderson banging on the door at 9 o’clock at night as the Franklin custodial crew was cleaning up after the show and preparing to close the building for the evening.
The cleaning crew welcomed Anderson into the building and suspected that Wally was tossed into the trash during the post-concert cleanup. Anderson and a few other women in the crew started pulling out trash bags and going through them, but their early efforts were fruitless and frustrating.
Finally, BTSD Evening Custodial Coordinator Christine Secor made a key decision. She climbed into the school dumpster to investigate more bags until she finally found Wally.
“They are absolute Christmas angels. It was such an above-and-beyond thing they did for me,” said Anderson.
Wally was dirty and needed a serious bath but was reunited with a joyful and grateful Ollie.
“With tears in my eyes, I just kept hugging Christine and said, ‘You don’t know how much this means to me,’” recalls Anderson.
As a thank you, Anderson baked Christmas cookies and delivered them to Franklin’s crew before winter break.
“Admittedly, in over two decades as a district administrator, I have worked in places where the custodial crew would have simply said, ‘Sorry, building is closed,’ and that would have been the end of it,” Superintendent Michael Nitti stated. “For Christine and the Franklin crew to go so far above and beyond, to where they are literally crawling into a dumpster for a child, is a testament to the high quality of people we have working at BTSD and how much they care about the school community.”