Today was the day that many kids have been waiting for, as a dozen members of the Shrewsbury Leaders of Tomorrow group made Christmas a little brighter for 500 Worcester Elementary school students with their annual winter coat distribution.
Teamwork was the name of the game, as families and local business owners ran all over Massachusetts last week, picking up over 700 coats, donated to the Shrewsbury based Massachusetts Children’s Fund, via the Anton’s cleaners Coats for Kids program. As shuttles ran to and from Lowell, Methuen, Medfield, and Framingham, the stockpile of children’s coats began to take shape, and it all culminated with this mornings fantastic coat give away program at a local elementary school in Worcester, in which almost 90% of the students are on the free and reduced lunch program, and few had decent winter coats. To see the love and compassion with which our Shrewsbury students hand fitted each person with a new winter coat, was simply inspiring. Obviously, the values of empathy and hard work that they’ve learned here in Shrewsbury over the years has really made it’s mark, and they worked for hours until all the kids had a coat for themselves, and in many cases and extra to bring home for a sibling or two.
Special thanks go to LOT member Gracie Rocco, who was the team leader for the project, her mom and dad who helped along the way, and Nick Martinelli for being the best pick-up driver ever. More thanks to the students who came this morning, Nick Revelli, Jesse Levine, Jack Snyder, Shannon Bouffard, Brooke Johnson, Liz St. Pierre, Garret Lehan and several others. Last but not least, thanks to the great staff at Oak Middle School for allowing the kids to take a couple hours away from their formal “lessons” to learn what may have been the most valuable lesson of the year – namely that they need to be grateful each and every day for all they have.