By Laurel Parker West | Program Director
In the Rockaways, Brighton Beach, and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn flooded by Superstorm Sandy, hundreds of children returned to their Head Start programs and schools fully equipped to learn thanks to your generous support! Baby Buggy was able to provide over 600 backpacks and 600 early education school supply kits to the children we serve in these Sandy-affected areas.
On a recent visit to one of our Head Start programs in Far Rockaway, we saw cubbies newly filled with clothing, backpacks, and school supplies, along with shelves teeming with books and educational toys. As children and parents arrived, they expressed relief to be gradually returning to the normalcy of the back-to-school rush. Because of the extensive flooding caused by Sandy to many classrooms, houses, and apartments, most of their backpacks and school supplies were completely ruined. These expensive supplies are hard for the low-income parents we serve to come by during the best of times. With the ongoing economic challenges of the rebuilding process, parents were finding it especially difficult to equip their children with the tools they need to succeed in school. We were thrilled to step in and provide beautiful new backpacks and lunchboxes, along with crayons, paper, notebooks, glue sticks, pencils, markers, and all the other supplies children in early education and elementary school need to learn and thrive.
And most importantly, we know that these beautiful backpacks and supplies helped the children feel some of the excitement that the start of a new school year can bring--every child deserves the thrill of flipping through a set of brightly colored new folders or running their fingers along the tops of a new set of rainbow markers! These much-needed school supplies are a vivid reminder to these children and their parents that we have not forgotten about the struggles they have faced and continue to face in rebuilding their homes and lives after Sandy. Thanks for making this week's back-to-school transition so positive for so many of New York's most vulnerable children!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
