To the Editor:

I would like to thank the parents and kids of Woodland Heights Elementary and other participating community members for their tremendous help and contributions to our clothing drive for the Hurricane Katrina victims.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and within the first seventy-two hours, the students of Woodland Heights were coming to my door, asking me “What are we going to do to help?” They had a number of ideas on what they would like to do and I asked for the evening to think about what would be best.

My brother and sister-in-law, Shawn and Amy Carney, called me at home that evening (Wed.) asking if I had any clothes to donate to Amy’s school. They explained the evacuees were coming into the Houston area, and children were enrolling without any clothes, etc. So, there was the answer. I sent a note home on Thursday afternoon, hoping to have enough clothing donations to cover a 10-foot by 6-foot space.

I arrived at work on Friday morning and it took me twelve minutes to get into the building. Parents were stopping and asking if they could bring things by during the middle of the day and after school. The answer was “Sure, no problem”.

I walked into the building and was met by our PTO president, Karen Lynch. She asked me if I had seen all the donations – “No, not yet”, I walked down the hall and rounded the corner and started crying. By 8 A. M., there was a space filled up with clothing donations that measured 20 feet by 6 feet and it was averaging 2 feet high. Donations poured in all through the day and when the last car drove away at 5 P.M., we had covered a space 33 feet by 10 feet and it was 2 ½ feet high. Additional donations came in over the weekend.

I was originally thinking of filling up the back of a pickup truck and we ended up renting a U-Haul trailer to be able to get all the donations back to Fort Bend ISD Clothing Closet. Thank you to Mr. And Mrs. Gary Chamberlain -  they went and picked up the trailer for us. Thank you to Mr. Scott Leach from U-Haul - he helped us out with the trailer on such a short notice and was extremely generous in working with us. Thank you to the Columbian Squires and their sponsors from St. Mary’s Catholic Church – they helped load everything. We had three dads pushing the stuff in to the trailer at the end with two ladies shoving more into any open space while two more gentlemen were pulling the door down on the trailer.

We filled up the trailer and the back of the pickup. Thank you all for your generous help and donations. You gave from the heart and you could tell from the amount that was loaded up and sent to those in need.

We also collected $402.65 to send to the American Red Cross.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Respectfully,

Kimber Carney Bennett

School Counselor

Woodland Heights Elementary