07/12/2026
✨ A video would be easier for you, but I enjoy the exchange between writer and reader. Join me!? ✨
💜📚 Thank You for Reading Our Community Voices 📚💜
We have reached the end of the Community Voices countdown series, and I have been trying to find the right words to close it.
Mostly, I just keep coming back to... Thank you.
To every person who trusted me with a piece of their story, thank you.
Thank you for writing honestly about nervousness, uncertainty, courage, joy, mistakes, belonging, and beginning again.
Thank you for sharing the parts of your first days that were not perfectly polished.
Thank you for reminding us that the people we see leading, teaching, creating, serving, parenting, working, building, and caring for our community have all experienced moments when they did not know exactly what would happen next.
Some of you began excited, afraid or even before you felt ready. Some missed, adjusted, practiced, and tried again. Every story carried something different, but together they shared one important message: None of us are alone in the way beginnings make us feel.
To everyone who stopped to read these features, thank you.
Whether you commented, shared, encouraged a participant, followed the series quietly, or simply carried one sentence with you into the rest of your day, you helped these stories travel.
You helped others feel heard. You helped this begin to feel like a community project. Not one where we raise money, or do something physical together. One where we took a moment to reflect and be vulnerable. It's not easy in this fast paced world to slow down like this. To experience togetherness in this way.
This started as a book, grew into an educational program, and now look at where we are!
For those who may be meeting me for the first time through this series, thank you for being here. 💕
My name is Jalaila Hardy.
I am a children’s book author, the creator of The Sandwich Way Education, and the person behind Dear First Day.
Mostly, though, I am a person made up of many first days.
At the heart of my children’s book, The Sandwich Way: First Day of School, is a belief that has shaped nearly everything I create:
Our differences are much more alike than we tend to notice. This series has proven just that.
With it, it may be easier to see that first days bring questions many children quietly carry. Many emotions and unspoken words.
Will I belong?
Will anyone understand me?
I feel nervous.
What if I make a mistake?
What if I am different?
Children can feel these questions at different degrees annually. As the first day of school approaches, some feel confident and ready! Until the morning of...
That realization became the beginning of Dear First Day.
I did not create this because I have mastered beginnings. I created it because I understand how vulnerable they can feel. I know what it is like to care deeply about an idea while wondering whether anyone else will understand it. I know what it feels like to step forward with hope, a nervous heart, and more questions than answers.
Our young people carry that same mix of hope and uncertainty into each new school year.
So, why poetry?
Poetry has been a safe haven for me since my teenage years. It gave me a way to feel deeply and give those feelings shape, meaning, and creative freedom. Poetry allows us to tell the truth beneath the surface. It lets us weave between words, leave space, and trust the reader to meet us in what is not fully explained.
My book asks us to make space in a similar way.
It opens a conversation about identity and belonging, then leaves room for families, educators, and neighbors to continue that conversation in their own words.
Dear First Day is where those two things meet and Community Voices was only one part of that vision.
The Dear First Day poetry and storytelling showcase is up next.
From there, the work will continue through community book giveaways, shared reading experiences, and new back-to-school efforts created to help children and families feel encouraged before the first day arrives.
In the weeks ahead, I will also be sharing more about making room for grace when the pressure of a new school year begins, and what it looks like to adjust, pivot, and keep moving when things do not go according to plan.
Each piece is connected.
The stories remind us that nervousness is normal.
The poetry gives people a place to express it.
The books help children see themselves in the conversation.
The next campaigns will help families carry that encouragement into the school year.
This has never been about one post, one book, or one event.
It is about building a gentler path toward the first day.
A path where children feel seen.
A path where parents, educators, school bus drivers, administrators, counselors, and the wider community feel supported.
A path where creativity and identity are welcomed.
A path where our community practices patience, kindness, honesty, and grace together.
This year is our first year in what I hope becomes an annual tradition.
I am still learning.
I am still adjusting.
I am still discovering what Dear First Day has the ability to can become.
Shaped by the voices, ideas, and participation of the people who call this community home.
The Community Voices series may be ending, but the stories are still moving.
With that, I would love to invite you to the Dear First Day Community Poetry and Storytelling Showcase.
Come listen to the words people were brave enough to share.
Come celebrate new beginnings.
Come to remember one of your own first days.
Come support the children, teens, and adults who chose to place their experiences on the page.
Come as you are.
Let’s celebrate this first day together.
And mostly,
Lets do it... The Sandwich Way. 🥪
💜📚✨
DEAR FIRST DAY
Community Poetry and Storytelling Showcase
📅 Sunday, July 19, 2026
🕒 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
📍 Birdie’s Deli
Learn more:
thesandwichway.com/pages/dear-first-day
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for listening.
And thank you for helping this first day become something we began together.
Dear First Day Community Voices 2026 in order:
Birdie's Deli - (Paddy and Chelsea Jernigan) Transform Yourself LLC -(Deirdre Huenneke) Pasta La Fata - (Shelly La Fata) Alison Spavale Middleton Violet Vonder Haar Audrianna Colon Revive Rehab - (Sarah Miller) Eliot & Muriel Battle - (Chad Stokes) Jr. Sean Hardy at BMW of Columbia Mo Megan Walters Flavor & Comfort - (Chad Jones-Hicks) Things To Do In Columbia, MO Luxx Beauty & Barber Institute - (Debra Harris) Gloss Como -(Delora May) Mayor Barbara Buffaloe Columbia Missouri's Hacky Sack Man - (Derrick Fogle), Taylor Wilson, Bekki Brewer for the 44th
With gratitude,
Jalaila Hardy
