Tammy Layne Waddell spent three decades teaching children in Forsyth County, Georgia. When she died of colon cancer on June 9, 2018, at age 58, she left one clear request. Skip the flowers. Bring backpacks filled with school supplies for students who needed them.
Her funeral at McDonald and Son Funeral Home in Cumming a few days later showed how seriously people took that wish. Roughly 130 backpacks lined the pews and aisles, packed with notebooks, pencils, and other basics that could carry a student through half a school year. About 100 teachers who had worked alongside her over the years stood as honorary pallbearers. After the service they carried those bags out to be delivered through the district’s Project Connect program.
Waddell was born November 17, 1959, in Duluth to G.E. and Barbara Meadows. She began working in Forsyth County Schools in 1987 as a paraprofessional and later taught at Sawnee Elementary, Cumming Elementary, and Haw Creek Elementary. She earned National Board Certification and was named the district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2003. Colleagues and family described a teacher who spent her own money on supplies when students came up short and who always called the kids in her classroom “her kids.”
She had beaten colon cancer once before. In August 2017 the disease returned. Doctors told her the outlook was poor. She retired from Haw Creek Elementary that fall to focus on treatment. Two weeks before she died she told her son Kevin she did not want flowers at the funeral. She wanted backpacks instead. Kevin Waddell, himself a teacher in the same district, later said the request fit the woman he knew. The passion she showed in the classroom was one of the reasons he chose the same profession.
Her cousin Dr. Brad Johnson shared photos from the service on Twitter. The images of backpacks filling the chapel and of teachers lined up as honorary pallbearers spread quickly. “Serving others to the end,” he wrote. “A teacher to the end.” Johnson later told reporters the response still surprised him even though it matched everything he knew about her. “Even in death, she’s still teaching every one of us.”
Paul Holbrook, a spokesman for the funeral home, said the donations kept arriving after the service. A nonprofit in the United Kingdom, TES Resources, contacted Johnson and arranged to send thousands more school supplies to Forsyth County students in Waddell’s name. The backpacks already collected went out through Project Connect, the annual district effort in which teachers deliver filled bags directly to the homes of students who need them.
Jennifer Caracciolo, a spokeswoman for Forsyth County Schools, called Waddell a servant leader who loved children. The donations, she said, formed a fitting tribute. Waddell was survived by her husband of 41 years, Mike; sons BJ and Kevin and their wives; four grandchildren; her mother Barbara Meadows; and a wide circle of extended family. Her obituary repeated the same request that guided the funeral: bring backpacks or donate to Project Connect in her memory.
Former students left notes calling her the best teacher they ever had. One described a classroom where every child felt seen. The photos of the backpacks continue to surface years later, a quiet reminder of a teacher who used her last public moment the same way she used her classroom years: to make sure the kids who needed help got it.
