2 sixth graders nominate their custodian for a Feel Good Friday surprise and his reaction is priceless

It’s not often we get emails from sixth graders about their school custodians. But that’s exactly what happened a few months ago.

Owen and Dane go to Rimrock Elementary School and wrote the following about their janitor, Leslie Pitman – aka “Joe.”

Joe is mostly deaf and has always relied on reading lips to communicate with the teachers and students. This year, with the mask requirements, he was no longer able to read lips and became very isolated. Despite the limitations, Joe still found ways to make us laugh and interact with us.

Joe has always worked hard for our school, but this year has been especially hard because of the Covid cleaning requirements and the night shift custodian got sick and wasn’t been able to return to work. Joe has been doing both the daytime custodial work, as well as the nighttime shift.

We have been staying after school every day to try and help him by taking out the trash from the classrooms and vacuuming. The equipment that Joe has to use is very old and doesn’t work well. When we vacuum the classrooms, it takes a really long time because the vacuum is unreliable. We can’t imagine having to do all of this work alone.

Joe is a friend to every student. We don’t know a lot about his personal life or needs, but we know how hard he works. With how isolated he has been, and how hard he has had to work, we want Joe to know how much we appreciate him and how much everyone loves him.

We were touched by Owen and Dane’s message and decided to surprise Joe during the last week of school! Watch the video above to see his reaction.