Charity Offers Flooding Into Newtown After The Sandy Hook Shootings
Peter Leone was busy making deli sandwiches and working the register at his Newtown General Store when he got a phone call from Alaska. It was a woman who wanted to give him her credit card number.
“She said, ‘I’m paying for the next $500 of food that goes out your door,'” Leone said. “About a half hour later another gentleman called, I think from the West Coast, and he did the same thing for $2,000.”
I feel like this post needs a “trigger warning” because if you are like me you are sobbing into your coffee cup at this point.
Saturday, all the town’s children were invited to town hall to choose from among hundreds of toys donated by individuals, organizations and toy stores.
The basement of the building resembled a toy store, with piles of stuffed penguins, Barbie dolls, board games, soccer balls and other fun gifts. All the toys were inspected and examined by bomb-sniffing dogs before being sorted and put on card tables. The children could choose whatever they wanted.
“But we’re not checking IDs at the door,” said Tom Mahoney, the building administrator, who’s in charge of handling gifts. “If there is a child from another town who comes in need of a toy, we’re not going to turn them away.”
The United Way of Western Connecticut said the official fund for donations had $2.6 million in it Saturday morning. Others sent envelopes stuffed with cash to pay for coffee, and a shipment of cupcakes arrived from a gourmet bakery in Beverly Hills, Calif.
You can still send donations to The United Way, but the town is asking that you send any physical gifts, like toys, to a local charity instead. When terrible things happen in the world, it’s with grace and love that we all do our part to help those affected heal. I hope the people of Newtown, Connecticut realize that they are all in our hearts.
(photo: Cardens Design /shutterstock)