This school supply giveaway taught everyone a lesson about planning ahead.
The back-to-school giveaway hosted by Millennium Development at Canarsie’s Bay View Cornerstone Community Center on Aug. 21 ended up a victim of its own success when so many kids showed up they ran out of backpacks before everybody got one.
One mother said the event left her child in tears when she found out she couldn’t have one.
“She was crying because she never received one,” said Michelle Mathis, whose daughter, Charisma Adams, was one of the children left out in the giveaway. “They said that there wasn’t enough for her.”
But a spokesman for Millennium Development promised the problem will be resolved soon. He said the group has contact information for all the children who did not receive backpacks and he guarantees the kids will have their school supplies before the first day of class.
“We’ll be fixing it for the those kids who were left out,” said Millennium spokesman Matthew Hammil. “They will be getting backpacks before the school year begins.”
Marine Park’s Kings Plaza donated the backpacks, which were packed with back-to-school goodies.
“They were filled were school supplies,” said Sara McGuiness, a spokeswoman for Kings Plaza, which donated backpacks to 15 different give-away programs this year. “Notebooks, loose leafs, pencils, pens, folders, and a hand sanitizer.”
