Over two dozen students in this Voorhees elementary school helped make “Blessing Bags” for a South Jersey non-profit this holiday season
Students in Ali Ferrell’s fourth-grade class at ET Hamilton School in Voorhees worked hard to make the holiday and winter seasons a bit easier for those in the local community without a home.
The kids helped create Warm Sock Blessing Bags last week for the Hand ’n’ Heart organization based in Mt. Laurel, a nonprofit that assists those associated with homelessness due to a myriad of reasons, from substance abuse use disorder, to mental illness and more.
More than two dozen students helped decorate the blessing bags with stickers, crayons and markers by writing positive messages on the bags to those who would receive the bags.
After decorating, the students went to the assembly line-style table to collect donations teachers and parents had gathered to give to those less fortunate.
Kim Hughes, the mother a student in Ferrell’s class, helped put together the afternoon for the kids.
“It’s just something my family and I do every year, we like to give back at the holidays and I like to do something different every year,” Hughes said. “I came across this amazing organization, and it’s lovely what they do.”
In each decorated bag were gloves, socks, a winter scarf and hat, toothbrushes and hand warmers, food and snacks, as well as a postcard with a stamp for recipients to write to family if they aren’t able to communicate with them any other way.
“We live in a community where the kids are so gracious and live beautiful lives, and there’s people out there that don’t,” Hughes said. “I think it’s nice for the kids to actually see the giving process; so it’s the fact that they’re actually going to be able to humbly put together that another little kid needs gloves … I just think that it’s good for the soul.”
Before decorating the bags and collecting the donations, Ferrell and Hughes also spoke with students about why they were putting these gifts together and how important it is to give back and pay it forward, with the students jumping in on the conversation.
“These are the little things that we all have that, unfortunately, not everyone does,” Hughes said.
Donations at the Hand ’n’ Heart organization go out every other weekend to families and those in need in both New Jersey and Philadelphia. The organization is always accepting donations on its website, as well as collecting love bags and looking to fundraise with more groups to help those in need. Visit its website at www.handnhearts.org.
