Rose Tree Media Students- Martin Luther King Day of Service

I would love to see more schools participate in this event next year!!!!

Elementary, middle and high school students in the Rose Tree Media School District are participating in the 17th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 16 – collecting needed items for disadvantaged children in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania area and delivering them to Cradles to Crayons for distribution to local youngsters in need.
“This is the first such district-wide event to bring together all the high school, middle school, and four elementary schools in a volunteer drive of this magnitude,” explained Ralph Harrison, assistant principal at Penncrest High School and event organizer.
Each school had a schedule for the collection of clothing and other items needed by Cradles to Crayons for several days leading up to and including MLK Day. On MLK day, students will sort and bag the items in accordance with the guidelines of Cradles to Crayons, with the assistance, as necessary, of Penncrest High School students. Rose Tree Media School District Maintenance Department personnel will pick up the sorted items from each school on Tuesday, January 17 and deliver them to the Cradles to Crayons' warehouse in West Conshohocken. “It was a true team effort from start to finish,” Harrison said. “It's pretty easy to mobilize the students and community for such a great cause and on such a great day. Cradles to Crayons represents the essence of Dr. King's message that has continued to live on years after his untimely death.”
“The Rose Tree Media School District children – along with their parents and school district staff – are performing important work,” declared Cradles to Crayons’ Executive Director Michal Smith. “We cannot ignore that Philadelphia is the poorest of the nation’s ten largest cities, with one in three of the city’s children living in poverty, but it must be noted that one in 12 children living in the Philadelphia suburbs are living below the federal poverty level. In fact,” she continued, “poverty rates in the suburbs and rural communities have increased faster than in urban areas!
Cradles to Crayons (www.cradlestocrayons.org, 215-836-0958) is the only local organization that maintains a year-round comprehensive and continuing program for collecting and delivering necessary supplies to children, free of charge, in low-income and/or homeless situations. ###