THE CRANSTON-HOUSTON CONNECTION

Orchard Farms helps school recover from Harvey

By Jen Cowart
Posted 9/20/17

In kindergarten on Friday morning, Tina Iacobucci and her students are sitting in a circle, straw hats on their heads, singing “This is America,” all together.

Principal Beth Basile is with …

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THE CRANSTON-HOUSTON CONNECTION

Orchard Farms helps school recover from Harvey

Posted

In kindergarten on Friday morning, Tina Iacobucci and her students are sitting in a circle, straw hats on their heads, singing “This is America,” all together.

Principal Beth Basile is with them too, sitting criss-cross-applesauce, singing along and wearing her hat. Standing just outside the circle, Assistant Principal Ed Myszak stands tall, hat on his head as well. Throughout the corridors, in and out of classrooms, hats can be seen on the heads of teachers and students alike at Orchard Farms Elementary School as the community banded together to help other teachers and students in Texas that they’d never even met before.

“This song is called ‘This is America,’ and it makes us understand why we are helping the people in Texas,” Iacobucci said to her young students, as they finished up their first full week of school. “We are going to mail all the money that we collect today so that the teachers in Texas can get the things they need.”

According to Basile, the hat day collection was a group effort, started simultaneously by the PTO who was wondering what the school could do to help those suffering from the destruction of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and by school social worker Bethany Handfield.

It was Handfield who was able to make a connection with a specific school in Texas, through a Facebook page that she is a part of.

“I am part of the Counselor Exchange, and it’s a page where school counselors can share resources, information and ideas,” she said. “It was there that they said if anyone wished to help out, they’d match us up with a specific teacher in need.”

From there, Handfield was connected with a third-grade teacher in Orangefield, Texas whose husband was a firefighter in the same town. Photos were exchanged, showing the Orangefield Elementary School building partially submerged in floodwaters. The need was great, and the teacher Handfield had connected with was willing to take any donations people were willing to give so that she could begin to re-purchase her classroom supplies.

“Even though it was only our first full week in, everyone was immediately on board,” she said. “Our art teacher, Paul Carpentier, made posters and the word spread. This morning I was looking at all of the hats coming in and it was amazing knowing that the school was willing to be so involved.”

After seeing several news reports about sending donated items versus sending monetary donations, a decision was made to do strictly monetary donations so that the money could be used for very specific needs, and shipping costs would be minimal. Students who made any donation at all could spend Friday wearing a hat to school, normally a no-no on any other day.

By the end of the day on Friday, $2,000 had been collected.

It is Handfield’s hope that with the newest hurricane, Irma, devastating other areas of the country that more school communities will be able to reach out to help the communities there who are in need.

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