From elementary school students raising money from their parents, to business owners putting their corporate resources to work, to townships sending police and rescue personnel to the Gulf states, the West Windsor-Plainsboro community has responded to the hurricane relief efforts.##M:[more]##
Among the volunteers and their efforts:
Cassie McClellan, 13, collected 466 pounds of knapsacks and school supplies to aid a middle school near Galvaston, Texas, sheltering Hurricane Katrina refugees. She is an eighth grade student at Grover Middle School.
Last year Cassie participated in the Junior National Student Leadership Conference and met someone from Humble, Texas. After the hurricane, she looked at websites to see who needed help and noticed that her friend’s school was welcoming “Katrina Kids.” She contacted the principal and he agreed to accept donations.
She shared the letter from Texas with Steve Mayer, principal at Grover, who told her to “go for it” and Cassie set up a collection box at Grover School. She also contacted Kaija Greenberg at West Windsor Library who agreed to help. Two wardrobe boxes were set up in the locations. Linda D’Orlando, Cassie’s guidance counselor, photocopied more than 1,”200 copies of the flyer to be distributed to every student in the school.
The collection boxes were filling up when that school was knocked out of commission by Hurricane Rita. Cassie E-mailed her penpal and didn’t hear back. A few days later her mother called the school and found out that the school was essentially OK but that employees without power at their homes could not work. The school opened the Wednesday following the hurricane.
“We didn’t really anticipate huge amounts of stuff but the box at school was overflowing,” said Cassie’s mother Linda. When Cassie and Linda went to the library to see if anything was in the box, they were shocked to see 25 new backpacks filled with new clothing for girls. Each bag was neatly labeled with a different size of clothing and each bag contained a letter from Ashley Roome, a senior at Princeton High School (whose dedication to various good causes recently led to a mission to Morocco for Operation Smile).
Born in East Windsor, Cassie has lived in West Windsor for close to nine years. Linda was raised in West Windsor, graduated from Princeton High School, and is an ophthalmology technician with Princeton Eye Institute. Cassie’s father, Rob, also raised in West Windsor, graduated from Princeton Day School. He is systems manager with Catalina Marketing in Manasquan.
The boxes were shipped through the Mailroom in West Windsor. This is the largest shipment they have ever made to one address. “It was an interesting and gratifying experience for Cassie,” says Linda McClellan. “We live in a very generous community.”
Libby Kamen, 14, a freshman at High School North collected close to $300 for the Red Cross to benefit hurricane victims. After she was involved with the high school’s collection of diapers, water, and canned food, she wanted to do more. First she walked around her neighborhood and then she set up a canister at the Princeton Sports Club Skating Rink in South Brunswick, where she is a competition figure skater.
Previous community service includes volunteering at Wheel to Heal, a fundraiser for cancer research, and she often reads to children in both Spanish and English at the Children’s Hospital in New Brunswick, where her father Bart Kamen is a pediatric oncologist.
Born in Plano, Texas (north of Dallas), the family moved to West Windsor when she was in the third grade. “Watching the news with the devastation during Labor Day weekend was very difficult for her,” says her mother Ruth, a speech pathologist in private practice. “The collection was important for her to do.”
Two fourth grade students at Village School collected hundreds of bags of new underwear, socks, and clothing for children and adults to benefit hurricane survivors. Anya Nathanson-Tell and Daniel Greenfield, both West Windsor residents, thanked everyone at Village schools for contributing at an assembly last Friday. Braun Research in Princeton will transport the clothing to Louisiana and Mississippi.
Gwen Hitchiner’s third grade class in the Dutch Neck Elementary School helped raise more than $6,”000 to benefit the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. They began by collecting payment for household chores. They wrote their deeds on a piece of paper, collected a donation from their family, and created a chain to string around the school. The funds will be donated to American Red Cross.
Students from Millstone River School embarked on a read-a-thon to support the American Red Cross and the Humane Society of the United States. Pledges collected from the read-a-thon will go directly to relief efforts for children, families, and pets affected by Hurricane Katrina. The school-wide project gives students the opportunity to use academic skills in a real world context, as well as teach students the life skills of compassion and respect for others beyond their community. The read-in took place on September 27.
Maria Cuthbert and Allison Zamparelli, third grade teachers at Hawk School, organized a parents vs. kids kickball ball to raise money for the Katrina victims. The game took place on October 1 and the money will be donated on the American Red Cross.
