Ellison kids help orphans

Imagine that everything you receive for Christmas fits in one shoebox. That’s what the 28 members of The Ellison School’s Interact Club were asked as they set to work in teams to build 28 “Boxes of Love,” shoe-box-sized plastic bins filled to the brim with items requested by the children who live at Armando Rosenberg Orphanage in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “The kids did an amazing job with this project,” said Mary Jane Kinkade, Interact Club adviser. “They spent three weeks collecting the items needed and then had a blast making sure that ‘their child’ would receive the best box ever.”

The boxes will arrive in time for Christmas, along with a supply of food donated by area Rotary clubs. This service project is one of many that Ellison Interact Club members will perform this year.

Interact Clubs are youth-sized versions of Rotary Clubs and are formed to teach the importance of service learning to children as young as age 10. Ellison’s Interact Club is the first to form at the middle school level in this Rotary district and was chartered by the Rotary Club of Vineland in May.