Community Corner
Local Students Collect Food, Donations for Lorton Community Action Center
The girls helped on behalf of local charity, Kids Sending Smiles, for four hours Saturday.
A group of local elementary school girls spent hours Saturday collecting donations of non-perishable food for the ’s food pantry. The nine students of Island Creek Elementary School in Alexandria are between eight and nine years-old, and acted on behalf of local charity Kids Sending Smiles.
At the end of the day, they collected $287 for the charity outside of the Giant Food store, at 7558 Telegraph Road.
The center’s pantry shelves are nearly empty, and the group also collected:
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- 41 jars of peanut butter
- 33 jars of jelly
- 33 cans of beans
- 32 jars of pasta sauce
- 28 packages of rice
- 75 boxes of pasta
- 84 cans of tuna fish and other canned meat
- 1 loaf of bread
- 48 boxes of cereal
- 26 cans of soup
- 1 box of crackers
- 2 packages of coffee and tea
- 1 package of oatmeal
- 1 jar of apple sauce
- 6 cans of vegetables
- 1 box of jello
- 2 boxes of granola bars
"The girls stood in front of the store and asked for help," said parent Laurie Flanagan. "The community answered. One elderly gentleman donated $100 saying that he knows there are people in his community that need money from his pension more than he does."
Kids Sending Smiles is a community service organization started by a group of Northern Virginian elementary school girls. Their projects include a winter coat drive for the Navajo Nation, financial support for a children's shelter in Peru and a lemonade stand with proceeds that paid for medical supplies in Mali.
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