Kiwanis family helps put pieces together

In the gymnasium at an elementary school in Linden, New Jersey, a bulletin board is plastered with newspaper photographs depicting the destruction left by the tidal wave that swept through South Asia this past December. Emblazoned across the top are words that immediately catch your attention: “Putting the pieces together after the tsunami.”

On the stage nearby is a large, black sea of garbage bags, stuffed full of Teddy bears and other such animals. Their destination: Sri Lanka.

“It’s so the kids over there won’t be lonely,” 11-year old Kasia Grant tells The Star-Ledger. “I know the kids near the tsunami will be so happy to get this,” fellow member Desiree Souels, 12, adds.

The children are members of the Linden Elementary School No. 1 K-Kids club, which orchestrated Operation Teddy Bear, a drive in which they collected, sorted, and packed more than 2,000 stuffed animals to send to children orphaned by the tsunami.

“Two-thirds of our students are from low-income families, so they’re used to being on the receiving end,” says principal Diana Braisted. “Knowing they could help children who have it worse than they do really lit a fire among our kids. To them, it was much more meaningful to write a note and attach it to a teddy bear bound for another child than it would have been to put a quarter in a jar.”

Braisted notes other elementary schools in the district were alerted to the campaign. “We have trucks driving by every day to drop off stuffed animals,” she says. “I’m not sure how many we’re going to wind up with.”

The Indian Ocean tsunami took the lives of nearly 300,000 people, orphaned thousands of children, and stole the homes and belongings of hundreds of thousands of survivors. The actions of the K-Kids club typify those of the Kiwanis family in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters to strike the planet. Though it’s been more than two months since the tsunami, much work needs to be done, and Kiwanis is at the heart of that work. The April issue of Kiwanis magazine will chronicle those efforts.