North School teachers, students bring Christmas cheer to Joplin

Maddy Lux works on a New Year's wish for students at a Joplin school damaged last May by a tornado at North School in Holts Summit. First- and fourth-graders also made snowflakes for a wishing well bulletin board they are sending. A sign on the wishing well will read "A New Year means a New Start ... Ms. Cannon's 4th Class wishes."
Maddy Lux works on a New Year's wish for students at a Joplin school damaged last May by a tornado at North School in Holts Summit. First- and fourth-graders also made snowflakes for a wishing well bulletin board they are sending. A sign on the wishing well will read "A New Year means a New Start ... Ms. Cannon's 4th Class wishes."

Classrooms, by nature, are bright, cheery places with walls often covered from top to bottom with teaching tools, posters and encouraging words.

When the tornado ripped through Joplin in May, it took classrooms and their cheer along with it.

Last summer, Barb Martin, principal of North School, said the teachers agreed to adopt a classroom from tornado-ravaged Joplin to help teachers add the cheer and joy to their classrooms and give the children a sense of normalcy.

At the time, Martin noted the teachers paid for many of the items out of their own pockets. And with the entire town being affected, the school staff would surely have other needs in addition to the extra classroom items.