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This year's Back to School Clothes for Kids Project was a record breaker for the Corporate Volunteer Council and an incredible benefit for students at Derby's Irving School according to Maria Nicola and Amy Merriman who co-chaired the project for the CVC. They noted that this year's project resulted in 174 children at Irving School receiving packets just in time for the start of the new school year.
The goal of the Back to School Clothes for Kids Project, which is now in its tenth year, is to provide needy students with the clothing and school supplies that they need to successfully start the new school year. Every year the Corporate Volunteer Council "adopts" one Valley school and works with the administrators, teachers and parents to identify the neediest children and supply them with two complete sets of clothes, a new pair of sneakers, a winter coat and a back pack full of school supplies. Parents provide not only the sizes for their children, but also some back ground information about the children's interests that are taken into consideration by the corporations as they spend the summer shopping for their students.
On August 25, the CVC held a Back to School party at Irving School for the children and their parents and distributed the gift wrapped packages to the students. Valley United Way President (and a former teacher!) Jack Walsh commended the CVC for their incredible work on the Back to School Project. He noted that in ten years, they have clothed over 1,000 Valley children and provided them with the tools and incentive to start the new school year on the right foot. He said, "By getting the students excited about school right from the start, the CVC is fostering good learning habits that translate to enhanced academic performance throughout the year. The benefits of their effort extends well beyond the gift of clothing, and we are thrilled that this year marks the tenth anniversary of this unique partnership." He also noted that the total value of the clothing presented to students this year totaled more than $26,000.
Valley United Way and the students at Irving School want to express our thanks to the following organizations for making this project so successful:
Barnum Financial
Services - A Division of MetLife
BPA Worldwide
CAPS
CDW-G
Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce
David Grant Caterer's
Emhart
Fletcher Thompson
General Electric
Hamworthy Peabody
Hasler, Inc.
Hewitt
Homewood Suites
Imagistics
Iroquois Gas Transmission
Kerite Company
Lifetouch
Market Data Retrieval
Microsol
NEC Unified
OCI Chemical
Perkin Elmer
Pitney Bowes
Prudential
St. Barbara's Church
The Hartford
Transcentive
United Illuminating
Wachovia Bank
Warner Financial
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