In a spirit of community collaboration and charity, the Village of Garden City and the Garden City School District are pooling their collective resources to provide assistance to the communities impacted by Katrina. In particular, the Garden City School District will be “adopting” Benjamin Franklin High School, a magnet school in the Orleans parish. Due to the recent enrollment of a student from Benjamin Franklin, this selection was the logical choice.

The reports from the Louisiana Department of Education indicates that many of the schools were devastated by the disaster. In fact, buildings were under water for a substantial period of time. The equipment and supplies used by the schools for educational purposes have been ruined and need to be replaced. The adoption process designed to collect the needed supplies and equipment that both the students and the school could use and to have them available when the school reopens.

This effort will be highlighted on the Homecoming Day celebration that will take place on Saturday, October 29th. The officers of the high school Student Council have promoted the event and worked diligently to incorporate it into the activities for the day. Community members who wish to donate may bring any item that could be useful in a school setting (please refer to the list) and deposit the item in one of the collection trucks. The trucks will be located in the parking lot at Village Hall on the day of Homecoming. Volunteers will help sort the items into prepared cartons. The collected items will be shipped to a redetermined location for Benjamin Franklin High School. Once the supplies have been received, the Louisiana coordinators will ensure that the items will be distributed to the students and placed in the school.

As a district movement, the elementary schools and secondary schools have all coordinated their resources and focus in this endeavor. At the elementary school level, teachers are collecting the “Scholastic Books” points. These points will be used to purchase reading materials, books and other materials from Scholastic Inc which will be donated to schools affected by the hurricane. Student groups at all levels have also held fund raisers and events to donate money to relief efforts such as the American Red Cross.

Items of particular use are:

Backpacks, pens, pencils, erasers, chalk, paper (looseleaf and copying), staplers, staples, composition books, notebooks, binders, notepads, highlighters, bandaids, bandages, paper clips, calculators, push pins, whiteout, computers,computer disks, rubberbands, legal pads, writing paper, reference books (college guides, etc), hand sanitizing soap, and any other supplies used in a school setting.