Angels Among Us: Agawam Lions Club members build home desks for school children
Chris DiMauro’s daughter sets up for remote learning every morning on the family’s dining room table, but by dinner time this third-grader has to put everything away. The family lives in a small home and doesn’t have anywhere else for her to attend at-home classes during the pandemic.
“It’s difficult because she’ll be working on a school project and we’ll want to take things down so we can have dinner,” explains her father. “She gets upset because that’s her workspace.”
Finding adequate learning space has been challenging for students across Western Massachusetts. Some are setting up on kitchen tables, countertops or sitting on their beds wired into virtual classrooms because
COVID-19 has closed the real thing.
Cheryl Terramagra tried to buy a desk for her 8-year old son online, but it was pricey and on a two-month backorder. The family tabled that idea and came up with their own solution.
“My father sawed a round kitchen table in half and we screwed it to the wall,” she explained. “We refinished it, and our son is using it as his working space in the living room.”
In some homes, parents and their children are crammed together, trying to find and share space as they work and learn online. With desks at a premium, the Agawam Lions Club is stepping up and building wooden desks for any Agawam Public Schools student who needs one.
“This is a difficult time for children. We want to build a little life raft for them to give them some normalcy. Here’s something just for you, something that you have control over. This is your desk,” says DiMauro, a member of the Agawam Lions Club.
By the end of December, the club had requests for nearly 200 desks. Several club members have been making them in their home workshops. The Home Depot in Westfield has been providing the club the lumber at a reduced price, but when funds started running short, the club waited for an outright corporate donation. It came this week in the form of $1,500 worth of wood, screws and sealant, enough to build 150 desks.