Meaning of Home

It was a cold afternoon of a snow day in Halifax, Nova Scotia was in the middle of a snow storm. Tyler and his mom were watching a movie when the TV went to commercial. Tyler loves watching the commercials, very closely, one by one he can tell if there’s a green screen or if there wasn’t, he could figure out all kinds of things about the commercials and nobody knew how he did it. Then all of sudden a new commercial came on, it was a commercial for Habitat for humanity. There was something going on in Tyler’s head, people were crying in the commercial. It wasn’t a funny food commercial, or a dumb app commercial, it was a sad commercial. Right after the commercial was over the satellite went out. So Tyler asked his mom, “ Mom, why were people crying in that commercial?” “Because they just got a home and there are a bunch of people without a home,” responded Tyler’s mom. “ So why don't we give them a home?” asked Tyler. “Well now that you’re in grade 4 you can write a poem, a story, an essay or just your opinion on what home means to you. There are also prizes if you get first place you get to decide where $30,000 go, your class gets a pizza party, you get an ipad, and if you’re the runner up you get to decide where $10,000 go, your class gets a pizza party and you get an electronic tablet. You know what, I’m telling your teacher about it right now. The next day Tyler’s teacher said that they were doing a project on what home means to you, but she also said that it was due next friday the 19 so we only had 10 days to finish the project and 2 of those days are weekends. So after they were done talking about how it was going to work they grouped up in pairs. Tyler went with Richie and Tyler explained how he was doing a story, and so was Richie. After they were done talking about what they were doing for the project they had 15 minutes to start their project. The class finished the project the 18th witch meant 1 day to spare before the project was due. About a week after they gave the projects to Habitat for humanity, Tyler’s teacher received an email that Tyler had won the grand prize for grade 4. As soon as Tyler knew that he won he told everybody that he won and they were proud of him, but there was one question that he had for everyone, even strangers: what does home mean to you?