MIAMI\u00a0 |\u00a0 Few of those who noticed a delivery truck outside St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School on the morning of Aug. 18 would\u2019ve thought that the volunteers unloading boxes were carting anything other than a normal delivery.<\/p>\n
However, what they were really delivering was hundreds of small joys.<\/p>\n
For nearly 35 years, the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana and Kiwanis of Little Havana Foundation have coordinated their Back-to-School Project, giving school supplies to underprivileged students across South Florida. This August, they collaborated with the Archdiocese of Miami and other sponsors to bring supplies to more than 15 schools, including three Catholic schools: St. Michael the Archangel and St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School in Miami, and St. James School in North Miami.<\/p>\n
This year, not only are kids across Miami-Dade County receiving school supplies, but the Archdiocese of Miami and Kiwanis of Little Havana are undertaking a second initiative to prepare backpacks and classroom essentials for approximately 2,000 children in Haiti.<\/p>\n
Supplying students in the Sunshine State<\/p>\n
Kiwanis International is a service organization with a strong focus on supporting young people. The Florida District involves more than 5,500 members in more than 200 clubs spanning not only Florida, but also the Turks and Caicos Islands and Grand Cayman.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation is a vital aspect of a child\u2019s life, and we try to facilitate it as much as we can in the schools with the greatest need,\u201d said Thomas Falcon, president of the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana, who is also a board member of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami.<\/p>\n
Jorge Fernandez, chairman of the Kiwanis of Little Havana Foundation board of trustees, agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s a great joy to be able to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students at St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School waited eagerly in line on Aug. 18 as volunteers filled their backpacks with back-to-school essentials: composition notebooks, filler paper, folders, crayons, pencils and pencil sharpeners, rulers, and blunt scissors. At St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School alone, the supplies were given to more than 350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students don\u2019t always have the means to get school supplies,\u201d said Jocelyn Zlatkin, principal, noting that the Haitian-majority community is currently \u201cgoing through a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the midst of everything, they\u2019re still growing academically by leaps and bounds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The principal noted that teachers work hard to keep classrooms stocked with supplies that kids might be missing. The school supply donation takes a weight off their shoulders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to the teachers, don\u2019t worry: [the supplies] are coming!\u201d Principal Zlatkin said. \u201cIt makes a world of difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 15 schools across Miami-Dade County benefited from this year\u2019s Back-to-School Project, reaching over 8,500 students. Besides the Kiwanis of Little Havana Foundation and the Archdiocese of Miami, other sponsors included the Miami Marlins Foundation and numerous local public officials.<\/p>\n
At St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School, kids were all smiles as volunteers loaded their backpacks with crayons, notebooks, and more. One of the kindergarten students made it a point to say, \u201cThank you, God bless you!\u201d to volunteers at each of the stations. Another student, a second-grader, skipped across the room to join her classmates, just as full of excitement as her backpack was full of new supplies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal here is to help the children start the school year excited and help them get off on the right foot,\u201d said Raymond Sardi\u00f1a, who has served as chair of the Back-to-School Project for over 15 years. \u201cBeing able to come with the support of the archdiocese to impact these children is really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sardi\u00f1a is an alumnus of St. Michael the Archangel School, one of the three archdiocesan schools that received supplies this year. Reflecting on his time as a St. Michael student, he shared, \u201cI\u2019m very grateful to my parents for that: they only had a seventh-grade education. They sacrificed to make sure that I had God and prayer to start my day in school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sending supplies across the sea<\/p>\n
This year was not the first time that the archdiocese and Kiwanis of Little Havana collaborated to bring supplies to students in South Florida. However, when Sardi\u00f1a approached the archdiocese to consider renewing their collaboration for this year\u2019s back-to-school drive, Archbishop Thomas Wenski also presented another idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe archbishop said, is this something they could do for Haiti too?\u201d said Katie Blanco Bourdeau, director of development for the Archdiocese of Miami.<\/p>\n
This year marks the first time the Archdiocese of Miami and Kiwanis of Little Havana will be sending school supplies to Haiti, in collaboration with the Haitian Catholic bishops. The Archdiocese of Miami sponsored supplies for 2,000 students in Haiti, which will be sent for the start of their school year in October.<\/p>\n
Haitian students\u2019 back-to-school wish list looks different: they also need backpacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Haiti, the backpack is probably the most essential thing,\u201d said Bourdeau. \u201cAccess to those types of things in Haiti is very, very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to loose-leaf paper, composition notebooks, folders, crayons, pencils and pencil sharpeners, rulers and scissors, each Haitian student will receive a final gift from students at St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral, St. Michael the Archangel, and St. James, who are penning notes in Haitian Creole.<\/p>\n
The Archdiocese of Miami\u2019s $15,000 in funding for the Haitian supplies came from a special collection that parishes began promoting at Confirmation Masses across South Florida two years ago. Known as the Haitian Confirmation Collection, Archdiocese of Miami religious education programs regularly ask families at Confirmation Masses to aid families in Haiti.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe need is real,\u201d said Sardi\u00f1a of the Haitian school supplies project. \u201cThe kids in Haiti are going to be starting off school on the right foot through the archdiocese\u2019s support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, 2,000 kids in Haiti will be able to go to school with full backpacks, just like the kids in Miami.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI\u00a0 |\u00a0 Few of those who noticed a delivery truck outside St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral School on the morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[49720,34635,2353,113,28,8367,225,227,226,159258,15403,74638],"class_list":["post-400219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-archdiocese-of-miami","tag-backpack","tag-child","tag-education","tag-florida","tag-haiti","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-kiwanis","tag-little-havana","tag-st-mary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}