Small children singing the fight song is not uncommon to most Auburn fans.
The singing children being from Chicago garners some attention, however.
Quinlan Matthew's second-grade class and Vanessa Goodar's special education class teamed up to give a presentation on Auburn that won Schmid Elementary School's college week competition. During the presentation, the children recited the Auburn Creed perfectly, recited facts and sang the fight song twice, while wearing homemade orange and blue shirts, surrounded by Auburn-themed decorations.
Matthew said her husband, David Matthew, who graduated from Auburn in 2010, helped pick Auburn for the competition and decorate the classroom.
"He said, 'OK now it's time for you all to do Auburn,'" Matthew said.
Matthew said the students, who are known as scholars, learned many of the facts during the last month of school, which she said is their college and career unit in social studies.
The children all picked an Auburn topic to present and did their own research, according to Matthew. She said they had the information on a flash card and eventually memorized it.
"We would spend 10-15 minutes while we were packing up practicing," Matthew said.
Matthew said the project was "really fun."
"This is my favorite project that we do all year," Matthew said.
Matthew said the school does not give a prize for the competition, however, the children were still excited to win.
"All of their hard work paid off, it's really a joy," Matthew said.
After the scholars won the competition, Matthew's grandmother-in-law, Patricia Corbitt, emailed the video to Gretchen VanValkenburg, vice president of alumni affairs.
"I was personally touched by it," VanValkenburg said. "I thought it was very inspiring that a school all the way in Chicago would actually take the time to learn about Auburn."
Shannon Bryant-Hankes, communications and marketing specialist in alumni affairs received permission to post the link to the Auburn Alumni Association Facebook page.
When this video went out, it just lit up," Bryant-Hankes said.
The post went viral, according to VanValkenburg, who said there had been approximately 250,000 shares between posts from different Auburn organizations' Facebook pages.
VanValkenburg said the response on social media made her proud to be associated with Auburn.
"They really want to do something to thank the students and embrace them into the Auburn Family," VanValkenburg said.
Bryant-Hankes said this video can be impactful to many people.
"I was just going, 'This is something that is going to change everyone's day when they see it,'" Bryant-Hankes said. "Because it was so powerful, and it was so uplifting."
The teachers also had conversations with people on the Facebook post, which Bryant-Hankes said is significant.
"You have all this going on, it makes the post much deeper than just a single post," Bryant-Hankes said. "All of a sudden, you have made this much more personal than just a video that's sitting out there."
Bryant-Hankes said the most impressive part for her was that the students had memorized all the facts.
VanValkenburg said a University-wide committee is being established to provide school supplies to the class. She said a package has already been sent with items such as shakers and pencils. She said some families had also reached out.
"One of the alumni families on Facebook wanted them to have real Auburn T-shirts, and so they went and purchased T-shirts and sent those T-shirts to them," VanValkenburg said.
Bryant-Hankes said the main benefit to the University is how people have come together.
"You can go down the other road and say, 'Well it's benefitted the University because all of a sudden, everyone's talking about Auburn University,' but I think it's much deeper than that," Bryant-Hankes said.
Bryant-Hankes said she saw a welcoming response on Facebook to the students.
"I think people were so touched by it that it was this immediate, 'We welcome you into the family,'" Bryant-Hankes said. "'You're one of us, and we're so excited about you.'"
Bryant-Hankes said the part that touched everyone was the genuine emotion that came from the children.
"It was real," Bryant-Hankes said.
Matthew said the children do not know about the massive social media response.
"I know they'll be over the top excited about that," Matthew said.
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