Students,
parents, alumni, staff and faculty at Moorestown
Friends School in Moorestown, New Jersey joined forces
with Edmund Optics Inc. in Barrington, New Jersey
to expedite the delivery of needed school supplies
to thousands of school children recently relocated
from the Gulf Coast to the Houston, Texas area. It
is estimated that Houston may have as many as 10,000
additional students to educate this year who have
been evacuated to the area from hurricane-ravaged
cities in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast.
Members
of the Moorestown Friends School community collected
21 densely packed cartons of school supplies including
calculators, pens, pencils, notebooks, crayons, folders
and construction paper.
More
than 12,000 total items were collected, including
317 dozen crayons, 293 dozen pens, 108 dozen water
soluble markers, 24 dozen binders, 89 packs of construction
paper and 23 reams of wide ruled paper.
In
addition, students have raised several hundred dollars
for the American Red Cross through individual donations
and through a wide range of Upper School fund-raising
activities, including a breakfast, a pajama
day on Fri., Sept. 23, and an upcoming dance.
On
Monday, Sept. 26, members of the Varsity Boys Soccer
and Varsity Girls field hockey teams will address
a mailing for Tully Cross, an Irish store in Philadelphia,
with the owner, Meg Turner donating the money she
would have paid for that service to the relief effort.
Edmund
Optics has also pledged $10,000 to the Red Cross
and is matching all employee contributions to the
effort.
MFS
students and staff sorted the donated items into
packing boxes per guidelines from the Red Cross so
that the needed materials could be easily identified
and distributed. The senior class aided in the inventory
of items and organized the final packing.
Representatives
of Edmund Optics Inc. picked up the supplies from
MFS and prepared the items for expedited delivery
from its distribution center. They were storing the
items over the weekend of Sept. 24-25 until the path
of Hurricane Rita was known.
The
Edmund family, owners of Edmund Optics, Inc., has
a long association with the Moorestown Friends School
community. Nicole Edmund, a 1986 graduate of the
school, teaches Middle and Upper School Art, and
several other family members are MFS graduates.
Laurence
R. Van Meter, Head of School at MFS, noted, “We’re
very grateful for the community’s support and
believe we have enough supplies to make a significant
impact on the needs of the Harris County School System.”
Likewise,
John Stack, President of Edmund Optics noted, “It
is critical that volunteer organizations and businesses
work together to rapidly assist these school systems
and the communities working to relocate Gulf Coast
residents.” |
