Rose Tree Media School District Students to Mark Martin Luther King Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 21, with Collection Drive for Region’s Low-Income, Homeless Children -

Elementary, middle and high school students in the Rose Tree Media School District will participate in the 18^th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service on Monday, January 21 – collecting vitally needed everyday items for children, aged 0-12, living in poverty in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania area.

The collection is in support of Cradles to Crayons'  (www.cradlestocrayons.org) year-round program to provide these essential items to disadvantaged children, free of charge, by engaging and connecting communities that have with communities that need.

“This is the our second year that we’ve held this district-wide event,” said David Stango, acting assistant principal at Penncrest High School, “and everyone is working hard to make this even more successful than last-year’s MLK Day of Service. We will once again be bringing together our high school, middle school, and four elementary schools in a volunteer drive that all of us in the Rose Tree Media School District – children, parents, teachers, administrators and school board members alike – understand is of paramount importance for the thousands of children, living in poverty in this region,” said Stango.

Each school will collect new and nearly new infants’ and children’s clothing, warm coats, hats, shoes, boots, gloves, newborn baby items, baby safety equipment, toys, books and school supplies in the days leading up to Martin Luther King Day of Service, January 21. On that day, students will sort and bag the items at the schools. Rose Tree Media School District Maintenance Department personnel will collect the donated items from each school the following day and deliver them to the Cradles to Crayons' warehouse in West Conshohocken, where they will be prepared and packaged for distribution by area social service agencies throughout southeastern Pennsylvania.

“While we cannot ignore that Philadelphia is the poorest of the nation’s 10 largest cities,” emphasized Cradles to Crayons’ Executive Director Michal Smith, “we must take note that poverty rates in the suburbs and rural communities are increasing faster than in urban areas! It makes the work of the Rose Tree Media School District community that much more important.”