Around the UFT
Gift giving at Community Learning Schools
Wishes granted
Jonathan Fickies
PS 335 1st-graders are led to their event accompanied by (back row, from left) Parent Coordinator Yvette Holley, Antonina Simeti and Marisol Pena of the UFT Community Learning Schools Initiative, UFT Brooklyn Parent and Community Liaison Betty Zohar, UFT Staff Director Ellie Engler, PTA Treasurer April Blanding and Christine Schuch of the Community Learning Schools Initiative.
Jonathan Fickies
Teacher Diana Wassen looks on as Santa brings smiles to the faces of two PS 65 students.
Jonathan Fickies
Two MS 584 8th-graders compare gifts.
In Kimberly Boynton’s 8th-grade classroom just before the winter break, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” was playing on the radio. Then, to the surprise and delight of her students, Santa Claus did come to town — bearing gifts for every child at MS 584 and PS 335, which share a building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
“The kids were smiling and laughing” as they unwrapped their gifts, said Boynton.
The scene was much the same at PS 65 in Ozone Park, Queens. Students from all grades had written letters to Santa. On the last day of school before the winter break, they entered their school’s multipurpose room to discover that it had been transformed into a holiday wonderland, complete with real Christmas trees, a mock fireplace, and Santa Claus himself on a throne, surrounded by the gifts students had asked for in their letters.
“It was like a movie,” said Joan Doctor, PS 65’s chapter leader. “Everybody had tears in their eyes.” More than one student could be heard exclaiming, “Wow, this is just what I asked for!” as they unwrapped their gifts, which included everything from Easy-Bake Ovens to bicycles.
“Every child in our school left with a gift,” said Doctor. “It truly did feel like Christmas.”
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Jonathan Fickies
Students at PS 65 show off their gifts, with staff and UFT volunteers.
Students at the three schools — all part of the UFT’s Community Learning Schools Initiative — had their holiday wishes granted thanks to the generosity of anonymous donors, the UFT, the union’s Retired Teachers Chapter, New York Cares and, for the second straight year, ARUP, a firm offering a broad range of professional services.