Rally Your Crew with a Squad Challenge

INSPIRE

Within a matter of hours, our entire world seemed upside down and out of focus. While we had known for a while of the possibility it could come, the domino effect for our family had been shockingly quick and surprisingly unsettling.

Our story in those first days of the COVID-19 shutdown is is not unlike so many others. My husband and I are both school leaders and were experiencing the stress of leading in these uncertain times. Taking care of our school communities is an honor and opportunity we view as a blessing, even in the most difficult of times, but we’d be lying if we didn’t admit the emotional weight we were (and are still) bearing.

We are also parents, lucky enough for three pretty fab teenagers (true today even if our oldest is turning 20 in a week😳) to call us Mom and Dad. And these three humans, we soon realized, needed us now more than usual.

RALLY

The stark realization of the ramifications, again, like so many others, swept across our family. Sam’s sophomore baseball season? Nope. AnnMarie’s senior prom? Not looking good. Her high school graduation? Who knows. Tanner’s college band trip to March Madness? Cancelled.

As our minds tried to wrap themselves around all of this and more, we decided we needed to rally as a family. Like Charles Swindoll says, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

Enter my self-proclaimed, rarely-if-ever-hidden nerd side. I had the idea and then pitched the Stacy Squad Challenge to my crew. Their reaction? Wait for it. Wait a bit longer because I was NOT sure if they’d take the bait. YES! It was met with some much needed laughter and a definitive, “Yes, we’re in!”

We set three rules:

1. Anyone can add anything to the list of challenges. Let’s have fun and see where this goes!
2. We have to work, as a team, to get as many completed as we can.
3. The challenge goes on for as long as we are locked down for Coronavirus.

I made and shared a Google Sheet (complete with a formula for automatically calculating our score🤓) and off we were! (Click HERE if you’d like to view and/or make a copy.)

AMPLIFY

We continue to add challenges to our list and keep working to check them off. We’ve even started tracking and posting our victories on Twitter using #StacySquadChallenge.

It’s been lots of fun already and what’s even better is having this collective goal that we each have a voice in and can look forward to.

As great as it’s been for our family, I’m certain it could be just as much fun as a school team. How have you been rallying during these Coronavirus days of lockdown, both as a family and as a school? Have an idea for a challenge? Together we are brilliant, so I’d love to connect! Tweet and tag me (@me1odystacy) or feel free to start a conversation by commenting below.