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August brought the return of an annual event as the Village of Palmetto Bay joined with the Ocaquatics Swim School in distributing backpacks to students in the community.
“With the first day of school approaching fast, Palmetto Bay continued its tradition of distributing backpacks filled with school supplies to village schools this morning,” said Mayor Karyn Cunningham, speaking on Aug. 17. “I and Councilman Steve Cody helped our Policing Unit stuff the backpacks, which were delivered to our schools by Councilman Cody and several of our amazing police officers.
“Thank you to Ocaquatics for donating the school supplies to fill the backpacks provided by myself and Councilman Cody, and best wishes to all our students, teachers, principals, and staff members as we prepare for another exciting school year.”
Councilmember Cody said he understood the importance of the effort.
“The first day of school can be stressful enough, but when you come from a family that can’t provide certain things it’s nice to be able to step in and make sure that the kids have that, so that they feel like they’re part of the class and the community,” Councilman Cody said. “This year Karen and I bought the backpacks themselves and Ocaquatics Swim School provided the stuff that went in them.
“Every kid got Crayola crayons — the good kind — I mean, when I was young it was very often the cheap no name crayons, but these were the top of the line, and colored pencils, markers, regular pencils, composition books, Duo-tangs and paper. My family heritage was in office supplies. My dad exported them to Central America, so it was like meeting up with a bunch of old friends. It was like a little warehouse of office supplies.”
Cody said that the Village Policing Unit helped in other ways, too.
“They contributed some of the stuff, and the officers helped assemble things. With them we put the backpacks together and I went out with the officers who are doing the DARE and Officer Friendly programs — basically the Community Outreach Officers.
“They were the superstars. We walked into the various schools and the kids that we passed saw the officers that they knew. It’s important to have the police interact with young people. It means that they know the police; they trust the police. Since I’ve been on the council I’ve made sure that we have police that can fill out that unit, plus I make sure the budget has what they need in terms of T-shirts and other things to support them in the classroom.”
The schools to which backpacks and supplies were distributed were Flagler Perrine Academy of the Arts, Coral Reef Elementary, Howard Drive Elementary and Southwood Middle School.
“We didn’t give backpacks at Southwood, but we did providem in bulkm a lot of paper, pens and books, that kind of stuff, that are useful,” Cody said. “Because the older kids might not want the kind of backpacks that we got for the elementary students.”
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