Venus Williams thanks her first- grade teacher

You may not have known the name Judy Vellegas, but you do now.

"These kids are our future," Vellegas says in a clip about educating her latest batch of youngsters in a 30-plus–year career. "We have to prepare them for that."

She was a first-grade teacher at Mark Twain Elementary School in Lynwood, California, when she had a probably-precocious student named Venus Ebony Starr Williams. Years—yea, decades—later, Venus has returned on the occasion of Teacher Appreciation Month to recognize Ms. Vellegas as a teacher who made a life-changing difference for her.

"Ms. Vellegas, I remember I felt inspired," Williams said. "I felt nourished. The care that she takes with each student, you can tell that there’s love in her heart."

That short film, directed by Oscar nominee Lucy Walker for the California Lottery, which gave $1.5 billion to California public schools last year, shares an indelible moment—a series of them, really—between educator and student.

It is telling and it is touching that Vellegas expressed to Williams that, while keeping records (read: manila folders) of students work may be a thing of the past in this tech-advanced era, she knew after 1986-87 school year closed that she would want to hold onto a certain file marked "Williams, Venus."

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