An Escondido teacher featured as NBC 7's Inspirational Teacher of the Month said the outpouring of support from the community has been "amazing" after some valuable tools were taken from his classroom in a break-in.
Last month, valuable power tools were stolen from Morgan Lundy’s woodshop class but students didn't let that stop them from finishing an important community project that spreads hope to the local community.
The power tools -- six power drills, a battery-operated skill saw and the class' speaker -- were being used to create inspirational "Signs of Hope" out of wood pallets. It was the students' biggest project of the semester.
NBC 7 shared the story, and Lundy said he immediately received offers to replace the tools and help in other ways.
“It made me realize, oh man, this isn't going to slow us down at all," Lundy said.
Tuesday, the students delivered those signs to people living at Mountain Shadows Community Home, a nearby care center for adults living with intellectual disabilities.
Senior Neryssa Lopez thought long and hard about what to put on her sign.
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“I chose 'you matter,' because we all need to have that reminder,” Lopez said.
Her sign was chosen by a woman named Lupita.
Lopez used one of their new drills to put it up on her wall.
"It's really a blessing to see my sign in use for someone else that can find beauty in it," Lopez said.
Lundy does the Signs of Hope project with his class each semester.
“Every single time I come, man, it has a huge impact on me. It makes me grateful,” Lundy said.
He is also grateful to those who helped replace the stolen items, to Loew’s for installing new shelving in his woodshop and to the donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, who is giving him a new, more heavy-duty, shed for all his tools.
Lundy was featured on NBC 7 in Nov. 2018 because of the invaluable lessons -- what he called "Lundy's life lessons" -- that he shared with students through his woodshop class at Classical Academy High School.
"Woodworking's the smallest part of what I teach," he told NBC 7's Rory Devine at the time.
