With in-person graduation ceremonies for seniors of the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District hanging in the balance, parents and alumni have taken it upon themselves to honor the Class of 2020.
Adopt-a-senior programs for each of the district’s three high schools — Amanda Elzy, Leflore County, and Greenwood — have been created on Facebook in order to celebrate the seniors.
“The purpose of the group is to give people in the community a way to honor those students because school is out indefinitely for the semester,” said KD Thompson, one of the co-creators of the adopt-a-senior program for Amanda Elzy High. She was a 2010 graduate and Miss Amanda Elzy.
Dr. Mary Brown, the district’s superintendent, said during a school board work session earlier this month that graduation ceremonies will be held when it’s safe to do so. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has issued an executive order closing public school buildings for the remainder of the school year.
In each Facebook group, seniors post bios about themselves, detailing what they’ve done in high school and what their plans are after graduation.
A member in the group will then comment or message the senior and “adopt” them. Adoption means that the adopter will present the senior with celebratory gifts for graduating.
Leslie Adams, who helped found the adopt-a-senior program for Greenwood High, is the mother of Quontavious Lymon, a senior at GHS who will go to Northeast Mississippi Community College to study sports management.
Adams said her son and other seniors throughout the district are upset over the uncertainty about a graduation ceremony.
“It’s a sad time for the kids,” she said.
Adams said that because she had her child at the age of 17, both she and her son had to deal with several obstacles. Seeing him beat the odds, she had looked forward to watching him walk across the stage.
LaShandar Johnson, a 1991 graduate of Leflore County High, helped spearhead the effort for her alma mater’s adopt-a-senior program. The pandemic and the associated cancellations and postponements present an unprecedented situation that is beyond the students’ control, Johnson said.
“Even though they’re not able to walk across the stage right now, they still have supporters,” she said.
Because Leflore County High’s 40-student class is the smallest of the three schools, Johnson said the seniors were immediately adopted after they posted their bios online.
On May 1, the adopters will present the seniors with the gifts they purchased for them, Johnson said.
At Greenwood High, there are 145 seniors in the Class of 2020. Adams said the turnout for the GHS program has been so successful that all of the seniors have been adopted multiple times.
“I wasn’t really expecting it to turn out so fast. The responses were awesome,” she said.
The deadline for Greenwood seniors to receive their gifts is May 22, the date that all three high schools would have held their graduation ceremonies, Adams said.
Within Elzy High’s adopt-a-senior group, every senior who has posted has been adopted, Thompson said. There are 84 seniors for Elzy’s Class of 2020.
Gift exchanges will be held May 2 at the Robert Moore Building on Carrollton Avenue.
“I’m really happy with the turnout,” Thompson said. “I can honestly say people in the community have stepped up to help make this a successful thing.”
•Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
