Positively Houston: Pearland teen donates book sales to essential workers
PEARLAND - A teen with a passion for poetry is thanking Houston area medical professionals in a special way in this Positively Houston.
As many of you may know, writing a book is something many of us start dreaming of in childhood but one Pearland teenager turned her dream into reality and some area frontline workers are also reaping the benefits.
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"This is my book,” Sydney Mathew smiles as the teen shows me Corona Diaries but before there was a book, a 14-year-old Sydney had her freshman year at Shadow Creek High School interrupted by a pandemic and she received this assignment. "For my English class we had to write a little bit each day and I started writing poems about the Coronavirus and how it was affecting family members and friends".
Since then she has turned 15, is now a Sophomore and a published author. "I just put all of my thoughts and emotions and feelings into these poems".
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The 15-year-old read a portion of one of her poems from the book. "We are doing everything to stay clean, even if it means missing out on birthdays, holidays, and shaking hands with the queen”. Then she looked up from the book smiling. "If you want to go check out my book it's on Amazon and Good Reads and it's called Corona Diaries".
Plenty of people are checking out Corona Diaries and what did Sydney do with her first check? She donated it, $200, to the medical staff at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital and they bought cute bags.
"The healthcare workers can carry their PPE in it. It's a nice, cool, little one shoulder bag that they can use. When she decided to do this we were on the other side of the surge and it was a very stressful time,” explains Hannah Ndirangu the ICU Director at Memorial Hermann Southeast.
"The healthcare workers have been working really, really hard these past couple of months and I wanted to do my part,” says Sydney. "It's very moving to see the support from the community, especially from a teenager. That really has helped lift the spirits of the healthcare workers,” Ndirangu adds.
Sydney's dad is a doctor and now his little author has given his colleagues quite a gift but as the teen reads a little more from her book "Forcing us to stay home and miss out on our lives is just plain mean. Our lives have been put on pause. I'm only 14”, she finds it ironic that she discovered her gift while isolated during a pandemic. "I just feel more inspired in my daily life to write. Before I just kind of wrote for fun here and there".
If you know someone like Sydney, then first of all count yourself blessed, she's an amazing young lady but also please tell me about them. I would be honored to feature them here on Positively Houston.