School 2 School
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Hello everyone, here is my final update for those of you who have been following our story for the past 10 days. What a whirl wind those 10 days have been!
We ended up receiving over $4,000 dollars in donations, and thousands of pounds of goods. We sorted and sorted and sorted, and ended up shipping 7 full pallets of new and almost new things to Lafayette Louisiana, mostly unifroms, socks, shoes, underwear, and school supplies. We rec'd support from Spanish River High, many local businesses, such as Gatsby's, Office Depot and more. All the donations we felt were not appropriate for children or for our purpose will be donated to our local programs Helping Hands and the Florence Fuller Center.
Joe Bonnie & Sons Moving came to Omni at 7am Friday and loaded up their truck, bringing everything to Volvo-Aero, where Debby Katz had arranged for all of our shipping. Shipping had become a huge obstacle by Wednesday because of the cicumstances in the gulf region, the President being there, etc.......we did not end up using the plane because of some of those issues. Debby came through for us big time. In fact, I was at school working on a video greeting with Mr. Goldstein Friday (who I left at 6:30pm while he was still working on it) when I got a call from Debby Katz who had just found out that no shipments were being allowed into the area. Only cash donations were accepted there. Debby had to talk her way through supervisors, and because our things were new, well sorted, and going to a specific recipient, she was able to get our shipment through. It should arrive in Louisiana Tuesday or Wednesday.
Many of our students wrote letters to the students of Lafayette, and the letters would warm your heart. Our video greeting is a collage of pictures we took throughout the 10 days, that we set to music. We will send it to Lafayette, with the children's letters.
Orly Greenberg from Channel 5 news did a story on Omni and it showed Thursday at noon and 6pm. The Boca Raton news also ran a story on us. But the real story was that our community is one of the grreatest places you could want to live in. I estimate that we logged over 400 hours this week, and THANK YOU to everyone who helped make it all work. I am so proud of what we accomplished, and to be a part of this community. By Wednesday, you should be able to go on our website and see the video greeting, as well as all the pictures we took. We will also have some of the letters the kids wrote- so watch for that at www.omnimiddle.org.
Debbie E. |