'A light in this school': Penn Middle School expands Landram's Light charity, created in honor of late teacher

Pete Landram was emotional when he walked through the doors of Penn Middle School to watch his son, Dylan, and 14 classmates pack tote bags with supplies for local cancer patients in honor of his wife.

Jackie Landram taught seventh grade English at the Penn Township school for 16 years. She died in her home at age 44 in January 2022 following a seven-year battle with ovarian cancer.

Her last day of work was just weeks before her death.

“She lost her hair and she still came to work. She had to have a walker and she still came in,” Pete Landram said. “Without being here, I think it would’ve been worse.”

Fellow teacher Meredith Hodge still pictures her colleague walking through the school’s halls in her final weeks of life.

“The students complain — I complain — about little things,” said Hodge, “but she showed up every day because she loved these kids and she loved her life and she loved her job.”

Shining a light

The school banded together in the 2023-2024 school year to honor Landram through a charitable initiative dubbed Landram’s Light.

The school gave meals to 30 families around Thanksgiving and Christmas and donated 50 tote bags to cancer patients at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Monroeville.

Teachers created the GRIT Award — given to students who exemplify the grace, resilience, integrity and tenacity the school saw in Landram.

“She got kicked,” said teacher Kelly Podkul,” but she didn’t get knocked down. She always kept forward.”

That’s the way Pete Landram wants his wife to be remembered.

“Cancer obviously was a big part of her,” he said, “but it’s not the whole story.”

The school has raised about $8,000 for Landram’s Light so far this school year, according to teacher Rick Steele — fundraising through school dances, a dodgeball tournament and teacher dress-down days.

About an eighth of the funds were donated to help local families in need.

“I think we’ve gotten to the point where the school understands what it’s about now,” Steele said.

School expands initiative

Students packed earlier this month 100 tote bags with a blanket, beanie, glass water bottle, hand warmers, lip balm, mints, coloring book, colored pencils, hand sanitizer, tissues and lotion — items that are meant to help with some of the side affects of chemotherapy, Hodge said.

“We know these bags aren’t changing lives,” Hodge said, “but we’re just trying to let them know that people care about them, thought about them, and maybe try to make some of their day a little more comfortable.”

Students also tucked handwritten notes from the 8th grade class into the bags.

“The contact from (the cancer center) just went on and on about how much the patients appreciated the notes more so than anything else,” Hodge said, “just knowing that these kids took a minute of their day to draw them a picture and say they were thinking about them.”

But with patients flooding into the Hillman Cancer Center from open to close, the tote bags will likely be distributed in one day. It only took an hour for the school’s 50 bags to be passed out to incoming cancer patients last year.

“In a day, they’re seeing that volume of patients,” Steele said. “It’s eye-opening and it’s scary and it’s sad.”

More than 1.7 million new cancer cases were reported across the United States in 2021 and more than 600,000 people died from the disease in 2022, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Cancer Institute estimated about 2 million people would be diagnosed with cancer and more than 611,000 would die from it across the country in 2024.

Landram’s memory remains

And with this being the first academic year none of the school’s students know Landram, it is even more important to keep her memory alive, Hodge said.

“We never want to lose focus that it all started because of Jackie and the wonderful person that she was,” Hodge said. “It’s called Landram’s Light, because she was such a light in this school and in the community.”

But that hasn’t stopped Landram’s Light from filtering its way into Penn Middle’s culture.

Students kicked off the school year with a GRIT Week, where they learned about Landram’s story through a video made by teacher Katie Datz. The school’s annual spring 5K at Bushy Run will be turned into a fundraising effort this year.

“The lessons that she taught just by living the way she did is what we’re trying to reinforce with these kids,” Hodge said.

Pete Landram still battles with the loss of his wife.

“We do pretty good,” he said of himself and his son, “but then a song comes on or whatever and it creates some tears.

“But I look at them as good tears now instead of bad tears.”