Lila Brehm and Tina Kelley

1/29/2022 3:48 pm

This is a story about friendship, sewing, and the love of the written word.

This is a story about the mentorship of a student which led to winning a writing contest.

This is the story about the bond between Lila Brehm, a Tuscan 4th grader and Tina Kelley, a freelance journalist and former Tuscan parent.

Like many of our recent lived experiences, this story begins with the pandemic. Through local initiatives, Tina and her neighbors, which included the Brehm family, took part in an effort to sew masks for the first responders and the SOMA community. Taken aback by the experience, Lila wrote a poem - entitled “Persistent” and included below - about first responders and shared it with her fellow sewers.

“She was the age that I was when I fell in love with writing,” Tina tells us. Tina has celebrated a successful career working in New York as a journalist and writer, which included publishing four books of poetry and reporting for the New York Times for many years. She was immediately in awe of Lila’s passion for writing.

For Lila, writing is an opportunity to be creative and express her thoughts, something she really enjoys. She says that she likes creating a world that others can relate to and get lost in.

So when Lila’s 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Donatelli, came upon a writing contest being promoted by The Hutch, a children’s magazine published by author and illustrator Peter Reynolds, it was a no-brainer that Lila should put a submission together. And working with Tina was a natural decision. The pair had many phone calls on their shared love of writing, and taking the sage advice that Tina gave her, Lila crafted her submission.

The contest, which focused on compassion, saw Lila first learn from Tina how to conduct an interview, and then using what she learnt, she interviewed Tina over the phone, recorded and submitted it to the magazine. The interview was about Tina's work with neighbors sewing masks for the community. [Unfortunately a digital copy of the interview is not available but you can see a picture here].

Lila says: “The best piece of advice that Tina gave me was to expect some failure when entering writing contests. That’s real life!”

But Lila was successful and her piece was published in June 2021. And she won the contest. Part of her prize was being invited to the magazine's launch party hosted by Peter Reynolds.

Tina says: “This is such an important age to encourage kids to pursue the things they love, and Lila was so devoted to her writing, that it was such a pleasure to work with her.”

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Persistent by Lila Brehm

If your hopes get down, if you feel small and that hill is too big to climb,

I want you to know,

Thank you. Thank you for every little thing you do.

You do your kind deeds without even knowing that you're doing them.

You have empathy for every person on this earth.

Thank you.

You are as brave as a lion leading it’s pack.

We need you every day, every hour and every minute.

The warmth of your kindness reaches the distance of the sun’s rays.

You are always there for us whenever we need you.