Teachers

This is a picture I took yesterday while on a site visit.
I'm doing a small tenant in an existing building.  The previous use of this space was for a day care center.  Due to budget cuts it was decided that it would better serve as offices. 
Anyway, when we got to the building we were escorted to the space by a lady who worked there.  Once you get into the room you're met with tons of these ribbons hanging from the ceiling.

Apparently the woman who ran the daycare would hang signs and pictures from them for the kids.  There was no other furniture in the room but the ribbons were still there because the ceiling was so high (11'0") and the lady had knotted the ribbons and put them in the ceiling so you couldn't pull them out.
When I started to pop the ceiling tiles out the ribbons would fall to the floor.  No big deal, I was just going to pick them up later, but then I noticed the lady who worked there who had shown us to the room and stayed with is for security's sake had picked up every ribbon that had fallen.  She kept doing this so I asked her what she was doing. 
She told me that she has a sister in Pennsylvania who is a teacher and who had been given $260 for the entire year as a budget to use on activities.  So she was picking the ribbons off the floor so she could send them to her sister in case she could use them.  These ribbons weren't new.  Some of them were frayed most of them were a bit faded, and yet they were still important enough that she would pick them off the floor.  So we went around and popped all the ribbons out of the ceiling so she would have about fifty to send to her sister.
Here's to all the teachers out there who are trying their best to make their students' learning experience the best it can be on limited funds.  It's hard, and a lot of them use their own funds. 
Thank you teachers.