See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
Canarsie elementary students gained between 10 and 15 pounds on Monday — in school supplies!
The Kids in Need Foundation, working with Energizer Batteries, dropped off 1,200 bags stuffed with about a dozen pounds of school supplies to kids at PS 115, in response to the trials and tribulations the students are facing following Hurricane Sandy.
“It’s somewhere between 10 to 15 pounds of supplies per child,” said Kids in Need Foundation Spokesman John Lester. “It’s just full to the brim of pencils, crayons, markers, Kleenex, paper, spiral notebooks, and binders.”
The supply drop was funded courtesy of — who else – the Energizer Bunny, which partnered with the charitable foundation after city officials highlighted PS 115 as one of the neediest schools following Sandy’s ravaging.
“We worked with the school district in New York and they identified this school as one that was most in need,” said Lester. “Energizer provided the funding and we handled the logistics, making sure they got to the right kids at the right time.”
Best of all, kids got to keep the backpacks the supplies were delivered in, which were carefully selected to be gender neutral, so no manly men ended up with pink school bags.
“What we’ve seen is that one kids doesn’t like his color, and he trades with another kid,” Lester explained. “It’s kind of amusing from what I hear, this horse trading over backpacks, but they tend to be general neutral. There’s no pink.”
Reach reporter Colin MIxson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.