NEARI Delivers Holiday Joy to Underprivileged Children in South Kingstown, Across RI

It’s common knowledge that a student can’t learn if he or she is hungry, cold, stressed, or otherwise challenged in everyday life. Since 1985, the National Education Association Rhode Island (NEARI) Children’s Fund has relied on union members to help the Fund reach out and assist the children they see in greatest need. During the holidays, hundreds of them shop with their own funds to ensure that those students receive gifts.

The 2013 holiday season marks the 22nd year of the NEARI Children’s Fund Gingerbread Express program. Nearly 2,000 children – and some families benefited from the kindness of Rhode Island teachers, school and public employees, student groups and other friends of the Fund.  

The Fund matches names of needy children, one by one, with willing donors. Each child is identified on a gingerbread cutout by number only, along with clothing sizes and a wish list that helps shoppers make the right choices. 

Students in South Kingstown, Coventry, East Providence, Exeter-West Greenwich, Westerly, Smithfield, North Kingstown, Warwick, Burrillville, Newport, Cumberland, Providence, East Greenwich and Nickerson Community Center (Providence) received gifts through the Gingerbread Express this year.

According to NEARI, the generosity of donors grows by the year, with each spending more than $100 per child. Enormous bags and boxes – one for each student – filled the NEARI headquarters in Cranston this year.

Most gifts were delivered quietly through the front office of each school shortly before classes let out for Christmas vacation. In one case, however, they arrived in a tractor-trailer donated by Teamsters Local 251, with real life “gingerbread” cookies as escorts. This Dec. 18 special delivery happened at the William D’Abate School in Providence, where every one of the 450 or so students receives gifts due to the economic level of their families. 

The Children’s Fund is financed by money raised through payroll deduction, fundraising events, and direct donations. Valerie Staples coordinates the Fund for NEARI, and retired member MaryJo Pouliot, from East Providence, serves as its president.