AISD RESPONDS: AISD campuses help hurricane victims

ATEMS “Angels” arrive at Conroe Crisis Center

BY NATHAN MONROE
ATEMS English Teacher

 “Y’all are angels! We are very low on food and even ran out for two days. We had to turn a single mother with four kids away the other day because we were out! You don’t know how much y’all have just blessed us!”

These are the words spoken to Amanda Earles by the man who runs a Crisis Center just outside of Conroe, Texas when she informed him that she had just come from Abilene with a load of supplies which had been donated to relieve the suffering in the Houston area after Hurricane Harvey.

Amanda and her husband, James, had driven all morning (leaving from Abilene at 6:30 a.m.) on Tuesday, September 19 to deliver the donated items. The donations were collected by Jackson Brothers Feed & Seed, Southwest Barrel Productions, and the parents and students of ATEMS.

When Amanda rang the doorbell to the Crisis Center and said, “We are here with donations from Abilene, Texas. We’ve got food, water, clothes, and school supplies for y’all,” the man’s eyes swelled with tears.

Amanda’s son, Trae, is a freshman at ATEMS this year, and knowing that ATEMS’ students are heavily involved in community service, Amanda contacted the school to inquire if the students would be interested in collecting food and supplies for delivery to the Houston area.

Much needed livestock supplies taken to help with hurricane victims.

During the week of September 11-15, students at ATEMS participated in a Hurricane Harvey Relief Drive. During the week, the students brought clothing, water, and non-perishable food items. When their part of the drive was over, a total of 36 cases and 178 cans of food, water, clothing, and school supplies had been collected in the relief effort.

After everything was unloaded at the crisis center in Conroe, Amanda reports that the man who runs the center gave her a hug, shook James’ hand, and said “God is within y’all!”  “Just thinking about it still makes me cry,” says Amanda.

 Jackson Elementary adopts devastated school in Houston

BY BRYLEE ELLISON
Jackson PTO President

A few days after the hurricane hit, and we saw the devastation that followed, I reached out to a lady who was in charge of a program called “Adopt a Classroom.” I emailed her and told her our PTO would love to help out where we could with donations of school supplies and such.

She matched us with several teachers at Sanchez Elementary School in Houston. This is a Ttitle 1 school where 98% of their students are on free or reduced lunch program. The majority of the families experienced flooding and damage to their homes, ruining newly purchased school supplies for their children, and HISD was set to begin classes on September 5, a week after the hurricane.

I immediately reached out to the teachers she set us up with, and they were so very appreciative of our efforts to gather as many donations as we could for them. I made a drop-box at the school and made a Facebook post on our PTO Facebook page about our plans. The response was nothing short of amazing!

Let me tell you, they showed up when it was time to give! Our students and parents, along with school faculty/staff, were able to fill seven boxes of school supplies, backpacks and cleaning supplies to ship directly to Sanchez Elementary! I am so very proud of our school and our community for all their help with this project.

One of the Sanchez second-grade teachers, Ms. Frazier, wrote this note to the Jackson family:

“Wednesday we were informed of the boxes and I couldn’t believe how amazing and generous your school community was to do this for us! We were humbled, excited, exhausted but in good spirits. I’ve attached some pics of where we stored our materials and have had teachers distributing supplies these last two days. More pics to come! A thousand times thank you!  Mrs. Frazier”