Many students in Craig Johnson’s sixth grade class received letters back from the businesses they wrote to – some even received coupons – but Hannah Zimmer’s reply from SoNo Pizzeria was, hands down, the best.
So Thursday April 2 Lucchetti presented Johnson’s class with a pizza party, and brought along a special gift for Hannah, a Nintendo Wii, disguised as a computer printer. And it all began with a class assignment.
For a writing exercise, Johnson had the students choose a business to write to with questions, comments, complaints or inquiries. The exercise was two-fold – it taught the kids to write formal business letters, and allowed them to have some fun when they received return mail from the companies they chose.
The kids wrote to a range of different companies – from Frito-Lays to Little Cesar’s – and Hannah chose to write to local pizzeria SoNo, whose pie her family likes best, she said.
When owner Lucchetti received the letter, it reminded him of his grade-school fan letter to Dino De Laurentis and his own excitement at receiving a poster and reply letter from his childhood hero, he said.
That’s when he knew he had to do something to pass on that feeling.
The boring printer box, though – didn’t throw her.
“Mr. Johnson gave me a hint, he said there was a surprise for me,” Hannah said.
“I wrote in my letter that I wanted a Wii,” she added.
She said with her family of seven, the gaming system will get a lot of use, especially with Mario Kart, her favorite game.
Hannah wrote in her letter to Lucchetti that she was distracted in class by Sono’s “luscious pizza,” and that she even applied her love of the pizza to learning fractions in math class.
“Even if my family and I knew how to make your pizza we would still go to your store and have fun on the Wii,” Hannah wrote.
Johnson said he has been using the writing exercise in his classes for a few years, and the students always enjoy getting responses to their letters in the mail.
“All she wanted from me was a letter,” Lucchetti said.
