Cherry Brook Primary School Students Bring in 'Gifts of Love'

For the third year, students at Cherry Brook Primary celebrated their 100th day of school by giving back.

Classes at the school has been collecting items for Gifts of Love, an Avon-based organization that provides food, clothing and other items to some 500 working but struggling families in the Greater Hartford area. Each class worked to get to 100 items, such as canned vegetables, juice boxes and soap, to donate on the 100th day of school on Tuesday. 

A group of third-grade enrichment students, under the direction of Pam Keagan, Cherry Brook Primary School media specialist and enrichment teacher, helped coordinate the effort, charting progress, updating the classrooms on their progress and on Tuesday helped load the Gifts of Love truck.

Karen Reid, Gifts of Love volunteer and outreach coordinator, told those students a little about the organization and thanked them for the school’s efforts.

“Our clients are working families but sometimes they just need a little financial help,” she said.

“This is incredible,” she later said about the effort. “Cherry Brook Primary School has done an absolutely outstanding job helping us at Gifts of Love.”   

Kindergarten teacher Kelly Theriault, liaison to Gifts of Love, praised the hard work of students, teachers and parents.

“What I like is that it’s a school-wide service project,” she said. “The parents are so generous.”