A group of Jacksonville parents have put together an effort to “adopt” students from the Graduating Class of 2020. Amber Rigor, one of the administrators of the Adopt a 2020 Senior Facebook Group says its a way to show love and recognition to the area’s seniors during all the chaotic disruption brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Rigor says all you have to have is a Facebook account and the willingness to show support. “The Adopt A Senior program is on Facebook only. All you have to do is click on the ‘Join This Group’ button after you get to the page. The admins will approve you. What you do is go on the page and look at the list of seniors that will either say ‘Adopted’ or ‘Not Adopted’, and you can adopt any of them. They can already be adopted and you can still select them. If you’re a family member or friend, and you just want to send them a card or a gift basket that’s what this is for. If you know they have a certain special interest, you can send them something pertaining to that through the mail to them – you can do that. Of course we want to get all the seniors adopted to show them some love.”
Rigor, who has a daughter that is a senior at JHS this year, says she got the idea from a friend in California via a text message exchange. The friend said that a similar program was going on in her area of the country. Rigor says the text message idea with her friend and collaboration with her sister caught on pretty quick and the Facebook group was created on Monday. She says they’ve had to add a couple more administrators to the group to coordinate all the functions of getting out contact information and vetting people coming into the group so local seniors can receive gifts, cards, and messages from their “adopters” on the group.
Rigor says there hasn’t been a timeline set up for the end of the program. She says the administrators want to make sure all of the seniors get adopted. She also wants to ensure that everyone’s schedule allows them to get on the group and adopt someone. Rigor says that the pandemic has caused many problems with people’s life schedules that she didn’t want it to come between someone trying to help out and trying to fulfill their own obligations.
Rigor says the success of the remainder of the program is up to the community. “All the participation that we can get to go towards this is essential to make this successful and effective. We’ve got 29 participants so far, and I think the class size is around 215-216 students. We need more seniors to get adopted on the group. We want to show all of them love. Anybody who can get on the group, share the group, tag people into the group and invite them. However you want to do it, let’s get these seniors some love.”
To sign up for the group, search for JHS Seniors of 2020 Adopt A Senior on Facebook and send a request. Administrators will get back to you in less than 24 hours so you can choose your student.