Schools
Middle School Students Donate Food & Reach Out to Troops
Students write to soldiers overseas — including a Ridge grad — and lead a collection for the Food Bank and Red Cross.
In memory of the victims of September 11 and in honor of the September 11 Service Day, the William Annin Middle School (WAMS) community united to offer aid to Hurricane Irene victims and encouragement and praise to soldiers.
Through a recent school-wide effort at WAMS, the students and staff collected food and wrote letters to soldiers serving overseas.
Through the generosity of the WAMS faculty, students and families collected more than 350 canned items, 95 bagged or boxed items, and 50 healthcare items and toiletries for the Somerset County Food Bank. This donation comes at a crucial time for the Food Bank, which is experiencing extremely low levels of food.
Find out what's happening in Basking Ridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The American Red Cross also received five large shopping bags of clothing.
With encouragement from the staff, the students produced 350 beautiful and touching cards and letters to send to American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Captain Robert Vincent, who is originally from Basking Ridge and leads a unit of 80 soldiers in Iraq, Sgt. James Miervaldis, a 2002 Ridge High School graduate stationed in Afghanistan, and relatives of staff members.
Find out what's happening in Basking Ridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“The students did a wonderful job of sharing their gratitude and praise for what these men and women do for Americans and people abroad every day,” said Deirdre Bachler, a Spanish teacher at WAMS.
She added, “William Annin School and the Basking Ridge district always perform so wonderfully in every way. However, this outpouring of compassion and charity is above and beyond expectations. We are very proud of our students and colleagues for everything that they did to make this food drive and soldier mailing a huge success.”
