In June 2018, people with colorful schoolbags gathered together in one place. There were various school supplies in the school bags. The place where they gathered was a funeral home. It was the day when the coffin of Tammy Waddell, who died of cancer at the age of 59, left her house.
Waddell was a teacher at an elementary school in Forsyth County, Georgia, the United States. She taught her students for about thirty years, considering them special enough to call them “my children.” She said that all children had the right to learn, and she would often help the students in need. Meanwhile, her cancer returned, and she became terminally ill; then she made a request to the people around her, “For my funeral, please bring school bags with school supplies instead of flowers, and give them to the children in need.”
The mourners gathered at the funeral with school bags for children because of the last request from Tammy Waddell. Waddell loved her students until the day she passed away. Her funeral left an impression on them as if she was having one last class with them.