Tredyffrin/Easttown Schools Giving Back This Holiday Season

BERWYN, PA – The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District community has been busy this holiday season with charitable initiatives to help those in need.

Check out what the TESD is doing to give back during the holiday season, courtesy of Tredyffrin/Easttown School District:

This year marks the twelfth year of Beaumont Elementary School's partnership with the Royer-Greaves School for the Blind. The Beaumont chorus will be performing at the Royer-Greaves School on December 19. The fourth grade MASH (Many Active Student Helpers) facilitate a gift card fundraiser to support the students in need at Royer-Greaves.

Devon Elementary School's Parent Teacher Organization is collecting broken holiday lights as part of its Green Initiative. The lights will be recycled and will be kept out of landfills. In learning about communities in their social studies lessons, Devon's first grade students created gingerbread communities that reflect what they learned.

Over at Hillside Elementary School, the community participated in a school-wide drive to provide warm outerwear clothing for men at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia. Students and their families supplied new gloves, hats, scarves and heavy socks to help keep the men warm during the cold winter months. In addition, Hillside staff members made dinner for residents at My Brother's House.

The annual "Day of Giving" at New Eagle Elementary School earlier this month collected and donated more than 300 books. During this event, the New Eagle school community donates hundreds of children's books. Students create and decorate their own wrapping paper and wrap the books, which are donated to T&E Care.

Valley Forge Elementary School students and families participated in a school-wide food drive to provide non-perishable items to local families served by T&E Care. Students and their families supplied different food items by grade level and then fourth grade students worked to sort and box up the items. At the conclusion of the food drive, the school donated more than 60 boxes of food and provided many meals to local families.

The T/E Middle School canned food drive is an annual school-wide tradition that is organized by Student Council. For three weeks, students bring in canned foods to their homeroom classes. A friendly competition ensues as homerooms compete to see who can be the most generous with their donations. On Dec. 12, students collected the cans they had donated and brought them down to the front of the school where Student Council students were there to help load the delivery truck. This year TEMS was able to collect 5,272 cans to donate to Paoli Food Closet. Mrs. Lori Henry-Watson's 5th grade homeroom was the school-wide winner, but many students felt the satisfaction of helping others during the holiday season.

Students and families from Valley Forge Middle School filled a van with stockings for the Salvation Army over the course of just one week. With the help of the VFMS Student Council and their $1,000 donation, the Builder's Club filled more than 200 stockings with toiletries and many gifts from an after-school shopping trip. Club members were given $500 to spend at Gateway and purchased hats, gloves, school supplies, balls, toys, games and more so the stockings would be stuffed with many goodies. The VFMS school community also collected items for the T&E Care holiday drive.

Conestoga High School's 'Stoga Big Give is underway with a number of student organizations leading service projects. Peer mediators are collecting stockings for the Chester County Stockings for Kids program. The Student Council is coordinating the collection of new, unwrapped toys for Toys for Tots. The African-American Student Union is collecting gently used shoes for Soles4Souls, a program that provides shoes to Pennsylvania students and natural disaster survivors around the world. And finally, T/E Kids Care is collecting new or gently used books for students.

Image via Tredyffrin/Easttown School District