Temple High graduate is making Valentine's Day gift baskets for teachers, parents
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#VelshiBannedBookClub: 100yr old Grace Linn quilts to fight bans The best thing about the #VelshiBannedBookClub is the community we've formed over the last year – our devoted members who write to us from all over the nation with questions for authors, suggested books, and moving stories – like that of 100-year-old Grace Linn. At the age of 99, Linn made a quilt – featuring the covers of banned and challenged books including some of our own features like "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and "Two Boys Kissing" by David Levithan. This week, Linn, who has known the fight for democracy intimately since losing her first husband in WWII, went viral addressing 500 people at a school board meeting in Martin County Florida and told them just how crucial books and reading truly are. “Every human being is just as important as any other,” says Linn, who continues her decades-long dedication to freedom, democracy, and the books that protect those two impossibly fragile things. MSNBC
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The holidays aren't easy for everyone.
17-year-old Aniyah Smith is doing her part to ease any burden for some teachers and parents trying to celebrate Valentine's Day.
"As a student I definitely know and I have watched like my fellow classmates or other teachers," says Smith, who's been making holiday baskets for three years now said. "Teachers don't say it all the time but you can always you can always tell when they're frustrated about something or a student when they can't afford what other students can afford. Things like that."
Smith says she is inspired by her mother and grandmother who would get creative and make crafts like she often does now. She said she used that inspiration to create many businesses in Temple, all based on her creativity and passion for giving back.
"I've always been creative I always liked to watch my grandma do stuff like that and even my mom," Smith said. "I basically like started doing it myself and I made it basically my business."
Smith said she wants kids, parents, adults or anyone looking for a gift for Valentine's Day to be able to get one.
She's selling baskets and donating them. For every basket she sells, she will also donate one to a teacher for their class. She's already personally donating four baskets to start.
"I'm already gonna donate four different baskets to some schools down here," Smith said. "Or I'm just gonna give them a raffle for a teacher or something to pick up the baskets for their students or their class."
