From Son to School: A Mother’s Day Tradition of Love Letters and Beautiful Bouquets

By: Donya Hassanshahi

Redwood students honor mothers with heartfelt letters and bouquets on Mother’s Day, continuing a tradition inspired by Assistant Principal Rodriguez’s childhood experience.

On Wednesday, May 1st, students submitted letters addressed to their moms in honor of Mother’s Day. Students crafted a 250-word essay answering the prompt: “Why is your mother the best?”

Four Rangers were awarded bouquets to gift to their moms from the submissions. Assistant Principal Mr. Eric Rodriguez organized the event alongside English teacher Mrs. Ashley Jurica.

Rodriguez was motivated to start this tradition at Redwood from his prior experiences. If it wasn’t for a personal encounter with a letter and flowers, this idea of gifting bouquets to the contest winners may not have begun.

For Rodriguez, the main inspiration for this event was his mother. “I’ve been doing administration now for fourteen years, so since then I was an assistant principal at an elementary school and she asked me, ‘Hey can you run some kind of contest?” says Rodriguez.

Due to the chaos of joining an unfamiliar school environment, he did not propose the idea until recently. Granted he has been at Redwood for the past three years, he says, “She reminded me this year early—like during Christmas break— this year. She asked ‘Can you please run a contest so I can bless some moms?'”

photos courtesy Rodriguez

Although his mom’s aspirations to carry the tradition to Redwood was an essential component of the contest, the idea initially arose when Rodriguez was in middle school.

During his middle school years, he says, “It was a similar contest, and it was for our English class right before Mother’s Day. I wrote something and turned it into a contest to nominate my mom as the best mom. I ended up winning and I walked home—I lived far, about five miles from home, so it was a far walk but it was okay because I was on cloud-nine because I won these flowers for my mom. I was super excited.”

She says she’ll never forget it when I got home. I was super sweaty, but so happy and ready to give her these flowers and what I wrote—I can’t remember but she does. It meant the world to her so much that almost thirty years later, I was fifteen, she still remembers and she still gets emotional about how she felt by what I wrote and coming home to her with those flowers. She was so happy.

Rodriquez on returning home with his awarded bouquet.

In years to follow, Rodriguez says that he hopes more applicants will submit to the contest. “Every student I’ve notified already has been super excited. I’m sure their mothers will be super excited to receive those,” he says.

Having had this experience with his mom, and her encouragement to bring this idea to life at Redwood, Rodriquez says, “I’m sad that it’s taken this long to make things to come to fruition like this, but I’m glad that I’ve finally taken the time to make this happen. I think it’s going to be a huge blessing for those four mothers to receive those flowers and experience, hopefully, something similar to what my mom experienced thirty years ago.”

As submissions were entered, Rodriguez’s mom, Mrs. Maria Alvarado, played a major role. In addition to aiding with the selection process for the entrees, she crafted the bouquets. “She creates floral arrangements herself so she buys flowers because she wants moms to have the same experience,” says Rodriguez.

Alvarado says she enjoyed participating in the project through this artistic forum “because I have a passion for flowers.”

Granted she has been asking her son to begin this Mother’s Day tradition, she says, “I just keep remembering that experience that I had when he came home with a bouquet of flowers and the excitement that he had, too, and the proudness that I saw in him because he won and he won it for me. It was just such a good experience that I thought about sharing it and passing it to someone else so that someone else could have the same experience, or experience something similar, to what we did.”

Being a part of the selection committee came with its difficulties. When reading the essays, Alvarado says, “It feels proud to hear that as a mother. You know, hearing the stories—they were all good to me, so it was just hard to pick from there. If it were for me, we would give everyone a prize, but we had to choose.”

I just wanted to do it so someone else could have a similar experience. The experience that I’ve had: I’ve been carrying it for all these years. It just brings good memories and also memories for whoever wins that has a daughter or a son that they’ll carry that on to.

Alvarado on the significance behind sharing her experience.

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