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" A Brave Teacher&amp;#039;s Quick Thinking In December 2012, after gunfire erupted at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis rushed 15 of her students into the tiny bathroom at the back of her classroom. For the next 45 minutes, she kept them calm and quiet, evading the gunman&amp;#039;s notice, ultimately saving their lives. The days that followed were surreal. Lauded for her heroics, Kaitlin reeled with grief (Sandy Hook lost 20 students and six educators that day). &amp;quot;I was terrified of everything,&amp;quot; she remembers. When she returned to teaching the following month, her pupils seemed to be feeling just as fragile. As she details in her new book, Choosing Hope, &amp;quot;I needed to help them. I just didn&amp;#039;t know how.&amp;quot; Not long after that, while opening a box of toys for her class \u2014 a gift from well-wishers \u2014 Kaitlin felt a spark of inspiration. &amp;quot;Why do you think someone sent this?&amp;quot; she asked her students. &amp;quot;To be nice,&amp;quot; a boy replied. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re right,&amp;quot; Kaitlin said. &amp;quot;And when someone does something nice for you, you have to do something nice for someone else in return.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Their eyes lit up,&amp;quot; Kaitlin, now 32, recalls. &amp;quot;They were so excited about the prospect of helping others.&amp;quot;  Lessons in Giving In February 2013, Kaitlin created a venue for them to do that with the nonprofit Classes 4 Classes, a social network that lets teachers and students help each other crowdsource funding for equipment and projects. To date, more than 1,300 children have received school supplies, educational tools and funds for field trips with assists from the C4C network. Students in fifth grade teacher Kristi McCann&amp;#039;s Bridgeport, Connecticut, class got an iPad thanks to C4C, and they paid the gift forward by helping another class. Throughout the school year, they were extra sweet to one another, holding doors, praising their classmates&amp;#039; special qualities, and swapping pick-me-up notes. Students, parents and teachers on the C4C network rewarded their good deeds with donations, which the kids then used to send an iPad to a class in Virginia. After their kindness campaign, Kristi&amp;#039;s students seemed more in tune with one another&amp;#039;s feelings, she says: &amp;quot;They became like a family.&amp;quot; Stories like that remind Kaitlin why she&amp;#039;s doing this. &amp;quot;After the shooting, I didn&amp;#039;t know how I was ever going to feel OK again,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;This has been my path to healing.&amp;quot; Connect with the cause: Support students at classes4classes.org.  Kaitlin&amp;#039;s book, Choosing Hope, was released last month. This story originally appeared in the November 2015 issue of Good Housekeeping. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a35120/sandy-hook-teacher-kaitlin-roig-debellis-book/>