Soaring For C!

Boonville, Missouri. Population 8000. Directly 100 miles east of Kansas City, Missouri. It was the site of one of the first Civil War battles in 1861 and is a town full of numerous historic markers along the Missouri River.

Fayette, Missouri. Population 2800. North of Boonville approximately 18 miles. Multiple National Register of Historic Places.

York, Nebraska. Population 8000. Crossroads of the Midwest, intersecting Interstate 80 and Highway 81.

Margie Brimer. Boonville High School Teacher, English Language Arts. Humanities.

Bailey Brimer. Fayette High School Teacher, English Language Arts. Honors English.

Me: Misty Brouillette, York, NE, Cessna’s mom and Soaring For C! president.

Soaring For C!:

Soaring For C! started as a Facebook group in memory of Cessna Elyse Brestel. It has become known as a place of Random Acts of Kindness with over 17,000 kindness cards circulating around the world in her memory. Soaring For C! is now a non-profit organization. This organization promotes random acts of kindness, and kindness in general. Soaring For C! also touches on the importance of mental health, primarily for elementary to college age students, and in particular suicide awareness/prevention.

July 2021. Margie’s basement flooded, displaced, and damaged both her daughters’ furniture. Sharon and Jim Platt, who previously lived in York, NE, allowed Margie to take what furniture she needed from their store and handed her a card. This card was a Random Act of Kindness in honor of Cessna. The Platt’s would not allow payment and only asked that the act of kindness be paid forward.

August 2022. Boonville High School Humanities Class. The Humanities include, but are not limited to: Language, History, Philosophy, Literature, Art, Imagination, Empathy.

Margie reached out to me via social media and explained to me how she received one of “Cessna’s Cards.” She shared her story to her humanities class, consisting of mostly seniors and a few juniors. She wanted to involve the students, and they were immediately eager to join the cause and wanted to know what Cessna would want and how they could pay it forward. Learning of Cessna’s love of animals, they decided to organize an animal adoption event.

Mind you, they do not know Cessna, they do not know me. We are complete strangers, brought together by a card.

Bailey Brimer, daughter of Margie, also joined in on the pay it forward event with her Honors English Class from Fayette, compromised of sophomores.

Together the students created Free Fall Festival, held on a beautiful fall, Saturday. The festival included games, such as: egg toss, corn hole, pillowcase races, and tug of war. Boonville Animal Shelter and Second Chance animal Rescue from Columbia, Missouri were present with their fury friends to promote animal adoptions.

The students invited me to attend.

345 miles or approximately 5 ½ hours away.

Of course, I would be there to support them! I added in the conversation that I could speak to their class on Friday, if my schedule allowed for it. We decided to keep that part of it a surprise, just in case I would not be able to get there.

I did get there.

And on Friday morning, I walked into two classrooms….and was introduced as Cessna’s mom.

Eyes wide and at full attention, they learned a little bit more about Cessna and me. Yes, there was a tragedy. Yes, there were traumas. Life is hard. Words matter. Kindness matters. You don’t really ever know how much of a difference you make to others. Your presence matters.

My presence mattered.

To me it mattered if I was there. To support them in an outreach project in memory of my Cessna, complete strangers.

No longer strangers. Brought together by kindness.

Boonville and Fayette family,

You will never know how much you have touched my broken soul. Thank you for being a band-aid on my broken heart.

Forever your biggest supporter!

Cessna’s mom

To find out more about Cessna’s story visit www.soaringforc.org

Margie Brimer Bailey Brimer Boonville R-1 School District Fayette R-III High School