Some teachers just do their jobs.
Other teachers take care of their students in an entirely different way.
Not only do they educate them, but they make sure that their emotional and physical needs are being taken care of.
Teachers pay for school supplies for their classroom, will pitch in to pay for field trips for students, buy their students winter coats, and step up for them when no one else will.
These are the teachers that greatly impact our lives.
These are the teachers that we never forget. Even after 40 years go by.
There’s nothing that will make Cindy Davis ever forget her third-grade teacher, Margarat Foote.
Davis says that Foote “saved me” and helped to usher her through a tough time in her life.
“She really came at a pivotal time for me,” Davis told KSL.com. “I was pretty alone and isolated. I feel like she really saved me in so many ways.”
Davis had always wanted to reach out to Foote and tell her just how much she impacted her life.
She wanted the chance to say “thank you.”
Davis got her chance to do that for her birthday in May 2017 which was almost 40 years after she first sat in Foote’s class at Granite Elementary School in Salt Lake City.
Davis and Foote share the same birthday week, so Davis decided that she would surprise her old teacher with a cake.
She wanted this cake to be extra special so she had Pete Tidwell of The Mighty Baker in Provo whip it up.
The bakery was a 2016 and 2017 winner of Cake Wars on the Food Network.
The cake was crafted so that each layer in the cake represents how Foote influenced her students in a positive way.
“She was the reason I wanted to get up in the morning and go to school every day,” Davis said.
When Davis was in third grade her mother had just remarried and moved the family to a new neighborhood and school.
Foote was one of Davis’ only friends in her new surroundings.
Davis was influenced by Foote so much that she decided to become a teacher herself.
Davis eventually moved on to becoming a principal and now trains future teachers at Utah Valley University.
When Davis teaches, she takes a page right out of Foote’s book.
“One thing we can always do is try to be a bright spot for everyone we interact with. That’s what I experienced in Miss Foote’s class and that’s what I wanted to try to create with my own students,” Davis said.
When the day came to surprise Foote, Davis was feeling a range of emotions.
“I’ve been nervous for a week and a half but now that we’re on the doorstop, I’m excited,” she said. “I just want her to know she’s a great teacher.”
David hadn’t seen Foote since 1978, so when she knocked on her door with flowers and a cake in hand she wasn’t sure if Foote would recognize her.
And even though Davis was just a child when they first met, Foote remembered her.
Foote was overwhelmed by Davis’ kind gesture.
“You don’t know what this means to me,” Foote said. “As a teacher, this is everything. Somehow you’ve succeeded in a small way. And that makes up for everything else, all the hard days.”
Watch this heartwarming reunion in the video below.
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