Longfellow families, community donate more than 50,000 items to Goodwill

Students could win visit from Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Sharp

Students, families, and the Longfellow Elementary School community generously donated more than 50,000 gently-used items to Goodwill through the Pass It On Challenge. The Challenge encouraged schools in the Chicagoland area to donate as many items to Goodwill as possible during the month of April. The school that donated the most items during that time will win a visit from Patrick Sharp of the Chicago Blackhawks.

At last tally on April 23, Longfellow was in third place of all schools in the Chicagoland area with 16,840 items donated. The tally doesn’t include many donations that have come in since, including the community’s donation of more than 10,000 items during the last week of April and 25,000 additional items on the final day of the Challenge.

“Our students were so excited to give back to the community,” said Rick Herrejon, principal of Longfellow Elementary School. “It was great to see every family get involved, even if they could only give an item or two. The support from our community was tremendous.”

The winning school will be announced on May 12. This is the fourth year of Goodwill’s Pass It On Challenge. Last year, nearly 1.8 million items were donated in the Chicagoland area during the month of the Challenge.

“The Pass It On Challenge continues to grow and we love to see schools and communities rally together to reduce, reuse, and recycle. But, most important is that the revenue from the sale of these items in our stores is reinvested in our mission of helping people find jobs.” said Cheryl Lightholder, manager of Communications for Goodwill.