Wendi Pillars was nominated by her assistant principal, Donna Barger.
One of Merriam Webster's definition of life is "a way or manner of living." Education takes this definition to another level. Ms. Pillars has a manner of living that rises above the static that seems to take over much of our own lives. She is a true teacher leader.
On a daily basis, Ms. Pillars demonstrates a proven ability to make a beneficial difference in the lives of students. At one point, her school had a student who was taken to a detainment center and set for possible deportation. Ms. Pillars organized others to provide help and guidance for family members. She made sure the student was escorted back home safely when the parents could not get to their child to bring her home. Ms. Pillars selflessly works to better her students beyond the school day.
Ms. Pillars wrote a book titled "Visual Note-Taking for Educators." She works to provide guidance to teachers working with ELL students and is regularly asked by many organizations to present. She serves as a mentor to teachers, is Nationally Board Certified, a National Geograhic certified teacher and an IREX teacher, too. Her list of many accomplishments also includes Chatham County Teacher of the Year. She has even served our country in the military! Her love of learning continues to manifest itself in all these various achievements.
"You can not find another educator who truly embodies the spirit and drive that takes a teacher from wonderful to fantastic," said Barger.
So, my mom, Wendi Pillars is pretty great. She is one of the most caring, creative, thoughtful people you will ever meet. She cares so much about her job even though her job can give very high amounts of stress. She is willing to do whatever it takes, she will come home and ask me questions on how my class and I will react to the activities she has planned. She is an amazing person for the life changer of the year. If I'm honest, I absolutely not live without my mom. She is so fun and loving at home, she shows so much love to our pets, and just wants to make me happy and I just love that about her. If we are walking around Walmart or anywhere and she sees one of her students, that students face always just absolutely lights up, I know her student always enjoy her. She always wants to exceed at very high standards but likes to keep things calm and fun all at the same time. She has always, I mean always been to my sports games so far out of these 13 years. If she was in a different state and I had a game that day, She was there as soon as possible. I just know my mom Wendi Pillars is the best person for this award. She has affected my life and many, many, many other lives. I know I'm just blessed to call her my mom.
Ms. Wendi Pillars exemplifies the definition of a teacher every single day. A teacher is someone who keeps an open mind while facilitating those special moments where students thrive at their pace. When I see this power in the classroom, in the hallways, and in quiet moments of support, I can't help but be thankful to have Ms. Pillars as an example, a leader of mastery. It's not about the content, it's about the space. How do we lift students up from where they are? Ms. Pillars helps do that each and every day. Her dedication and positivity is infectious. I'm glad to know her.
Different wastes are produced by different schools. Wastes products like plastics, used papers, and bottles are collected by our school's ECO and YES-O Club to be sell, and the money we get are ussed for science-related activities like seminars and camps. Food eastes form the canteen has becaome a great problem as it cannot be recycled. So, as the former President of the YES-O Club,I proposed a project composed pit for our school that will be built using plastic bottles and plastic wrappers as its fillings, with the foundation of hollow blocks and cement. This project will never be possible without the help of Ms. Wendi Pillars. Starting from 2016, when she visited our school, she never stops supporting different projects with the hope that these projects will be beneficial to the students and teachers. She inspired me to believe that there are still many people that can offer great help without asking for something in return. And with that, I want to be just like her, to be a person who seeks to help and make others lives, the educational institution a great place to learn.
Ms. Wendi Pillars was one of the great teachers I’ve known who’s also a member of Teachers for Global Classroom-TGC. She visited my former school in 2016 and also greatly contributed on my Project ABook Tanaw, two years back then. She had given me the opportunity to make a big impact to the children of our barangay by providing financial aide for the number of books I needed for the project. This instilled them good attitude towards reading. And as today’s youth, I’m so grateful to her for letting me to impose not only good values but also a heartfelt relationship with them. As of now, I’m still continuing the project even though I’m already in College because of the inspiration I’d gained from the support I received from her. That’s why I highly recommend and support Ms. Wendi Pillars as a LifeChanger Educator. ??
Ms. Wendi was one of the reasons why we had our Project Clean and Green at Boot National High School. As one of the organizing committee, I am thankful that Ms. Wendi was there to support the financial needs of this project. It became a successful project through planting variety of plants in our school which improves not only our school gardens but also the whole aesthetic view of our school.
I strongly recommend Ms. Wendi Pillars as a Life Changer of the year. Last 2016, when she visited our school Boot National High School, she encouraged us,the students, to reach out for our community. And I was lucky enough that I had given an opportunity to bring my Project Compost, putting compost pits on our small village, into reality. Ms. Wendi through my adviser Ms. Amelia Tapia Buban extended her support by funding my project. The project became beneficial to our small village and our environment wherein my co-villagers became responsible in segregating and disposing garbages.
She's Great. And she help us a lot, so we are thankful to have her.
I highly recommend Ms. Wendi Pillars to be LifeChanger of the Year for her many contributions to our students at Boot National High School.Some of her funded projects were Project : A Book Tanaw, a reading intervention project for the less fortunate Filipino children in the barangay. Another funded project was Project Tanglaw, a project for our students who walked for 2 hours just to make it in school for their classes.This project provided lighting to the students walking in the wee hours.Those projects won for our students the Ten Outstanding Youth award, it change the lives of our students in many ways.Boot National High School was hailed as Best Brigada Eskwela Implementer for 3 years because of her sponsorship of the different projects of the school.The school is also the National Awardee for Brigada Eskwela this 2019 because of the mini grants she.provided.My congratulatuons to her for her impressive way of changing the lives of others.
JOSEFINE MAGPANTAY
Principal
Boot National High School
I strongly recommend and support Wendi Pillars as a LifeChanger educator. I had the privilege to know her through the Teachers for Global Classroom (TGC) Program of the US Department of State through ECA and IREX. She was able to go to the Philippines and stay in our school Boot National High School in Tanauan City, Batangas with the community for several weeks sometime in 2016. I have seen her desire to reach out for our students, faculty members, parents and the community. Her stay with us brought several learning wherein our students and school community know something about the US education, culture and a glimpse of what is North Carolina. She also shared her book with me about visual notetaking. Everything does not stop there. Upon going back to the US Wendi continued communicating with me encouraging our students to reach out for the community for several mini projects wherein she unselfishly financed all. Our student leaders were able to execute projects to include Project Tanglaw, providing lighting to a small village near Taal Lake where some of our students live, Project Compost, putting of compost pit in a small village, Project Read, wherein a student conducted reading sessions for elementary students in the barangay. Aside from that she was able to help us with our school projects like Project Clean and Green through the assistance of constructing a VermiComposting facility, Project Compost for the construction of Compost Pit in school using 1.5 bottles with trash materials non biodegradable inside the 1.5 bottles. Project Innovate 1 and 2 wherein she helped us in our investigatory and income generating project that is on going until now. Through Project Innovate 1 our students through my technical assistance made a handcrafted organic soap out of locally materials and plants grown in the school vicinity. Right now our soap named Guavamansi (from Guava leaves extract and calamansi) exist and being sold to locale. It was made possible because of the mini grant given by Wendi. Another project is Project Improve where in our school was able to construct waste segregation facility, improved its physical environment through gardens. We had planted ornamental plants, pepper, calamansi seedlings, contouring was done using 1.5 bottles with trash inside it, plants where identified and labeled and gardens where improved. She had also give a certain amount for our fund raising for our shredder machine not yet being materialized as we still raised funds for its acquisition. Wendi had helped us in so many ways that the institution is very much grateful to her because our students became responsible in caring for the environment and being mindful of our trash. Our desire to improve our organic shampoo labeled AloeGreen this year is also being supported by Wendi. She is reaching out across the globe and always remembering the people she'd been with in our humble tiny school and community. She's been a blessing in so many ways. Words are not enough to express my deep desire for her to be recognize of what she’s been doing to improve the life of others.
