Teacher Related

A fourth-grade class from Sam Houston Elementary School will be selling lemonade from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. Students, Avery and Yaretzi, who are both battling brain tumors, will be the beneficiaries of the fundraiser, which will be held on Tuesday at Fannin Elementary and a benefit on Wednesday at Sam Houston. Cookies will cost a dollar each and lemonade will cost fifty cents each.

Avery attends Fannin Elementary and is in the second grade. A brain tumor was surgically removed in September, and she began chemotherapy in January. She will get treatment once a week for the next 60 weeks for the malignancy. She is admired by everyone who knows her, and Fannin, similarly, joins Avery in the struggle.

Diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017, Yaretzi endured three brain operations in nine days. The tumor was revealed to be regrowing with the use of regular MRI scans. She received surgery and proton radiation treatments this school year. A full recovery for Yaretzi and her family is dependent on their faith.

In 2018, Armstrong’s class read a biography of Alex Scott, a little girl who battled cancer from the age of four until she died at the age of eight. A lemonade stand set up by Alex to generate money for cancer research was launched at that time.

Armstrong said that the students were stunned into silence after hearing the story. “It was truly a profound moment.”

Students requested if they could put up a lemonade stand to generate money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, and they earned $1,400 that year, she said.

“She met Corsicana High School student Brenden Cofer, who had a brain tumor,” Armstrong said. The lemonade stand would be his for the next year.

After meeting Brenden for the first time, “my life was immediately impacted,” she claimed. “It takes an amazing mother and child to show up for others during their own fight. I used to think the start of the lemonade stand was all by coincidence. I don’t think that anymore.”

Armstrong credited Brenden for giving her a new perspective on how to best educate her pupils.

“Instruction is important. Relationships are important,” she said. “Showing the importance of helping others in the community is now a part of my mission as well.”

Cofer, a young man who died in February, was just 20 years old.

Brenden’s life was celebrated in March, Armstrong added. As a district, they had gathered money for him by holding a lemonade sale precisely two years ago. Over $5,000 was raised on all campuses.

A few years earlier, when Cofer showed up at the lemonade stand with a smile, she wondered whether she had made a difference in his life.

As a teacher, “It was then that I realized that this was all for a good cause: to educate my pupils to help those in need.” “We did it with Brenden.” He was the star of the show. Yaretzi and Avery are being supported by the Corsicana Tigers 2022 Lemonade Stand, but we will never forget and always cherish our Tiger Brenden Cofer.”