The last thing Kathy Irick, a College Hill Elementary School fourth-grade teacher, did before a recent lunch was place a newly framed quote on the shelf behind her desk.

“If you’d seen my room, I really didn’t need another one,” Irick said. “But, for some reason, when I found this over the summer, I just knew I wanted it for my classroom.”

The quote read, “You can find something positive in everything.”

Later that afternoon, two days before school was scheduled to start, the elementary school caught fire. Nearly every room suffered damaged. Years of teaching supplies, including some personal items with sentimental value, were destroyed.

The district made the quick decision to relocate the classrooms to the former Bryant Elementary School building. Teachers and students remained optimistic, despite working without many of the supplies they needed.

“I am reminded daily of the ‘something positive’ in my students’ faces, my colleague’s hugs, our district’s care and support and the love and generosity of our community,” Irick said, in reference to the framed quote she recently lost.

Irick found more positive influences in the school’s partnership with WSU’s College of Education. The College of Education staff wanted to support their fellow teachers after the loss.

“When this happened, it was like it happened to us,” said Gayla Lohfink, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction. “Because we’re teachers here, we get that. So we asked, ‘What can we do to support them?’”

Support came in the form of supply donations, a luncheon and an appearance by Wu Shock and a few WSU athletes on Sept. 18. Clay Stoldt, the interim associate dean of the College of Education, coordinated the effort with the athletic department.

“When they heard what the cause was, everybody was very quick to jump on board,” Stoldt said.

Along with the college’s donation of children’s books, games and teacher resources, the athletic department contributed Shocker pens, pencils and toys for the students and decorations for the teachers’ classrooms.

Wu helped distribute gifts and high-fives to smiling students on the day of the luncheon, while the athletes played basketball and other games with them during recess.

“For the past several years, College Hill students have made the trip to WSU to cheer on the women’s basketball team in December,” Irick said. “These students will not soon forget the day WSU came to cheer for them and show their support.”

For Lohfink and her College of Education colleagues, the luncheon was a way to give back to the school for all the help they have provided to WSU teaching students over the years.

“I think as a college, it was important to show that the partnership is more than just on paper,” Lohfink said. “It’s a relationship between these two institutions, but it is people, and these people are very important. The children they teach are very important.”

The gifts put a dent in the needs of teachers and students at College Hill Elementary, but perhaps more importantly, they left an impact on their hearts and minds.

“The visit and donations from WSU gave our students a more personal sense of what it means to be a positive role model and the importance of thinking of others,” Irick said. “Even when the supplies are used up, students will always have the memories of how others cared for them and made them feel very special. It’s another ‘something positive’ moment that may bring our students right to the front door of the university someday.”