Donating School Supplies | Ideas for Action
Nancy Molledo was looking for a way to give back to her community when she received a newsletter from the city of Hollywood, Florida. In it, she read that there would be a local supply drive to benefit Bahamian students displaced by Hurricane Dorian. “The Bahamians paid the price that spared us Floridians from Dorian’s devastation,” Nancy says. “It stalled over them for three days instead of moving on to us as was expected.”
In the wake of the storm, more than 250 young Bahamians enrolled in public schools throughout Nancy’s county. “When I saw the notice in the Hollywood newsletter I knew it was the perfect way to mark Idealist Day 10/10,” she says. And though the humanitarian effort was reason enough, Nancy had a personal connection to the situation as well. “There were many drives for relief for the Bahamas which we Floridians responded to, but I chose the school supplies drive as my Idealist Day 10/10 project because of Marguerite Taylor.”
Marguerite met Nancy in the 1980s, when she arrived to Florida from the Bahamas as a student. “She was a nanny to two of our grandchildren,” Nancy says. “She was wonderful with the children and became a member of the family. Marguerite returned to the Bahamas when our grandchildren became school age, but my grandchildren and their parents remained in touch with her.”
To honor her family’s relationship with Marguerite, Nancy bought and collected donations to deliver to her local collection site. All of the supplies and donations were then distributed to Bahamian families who had fled to Florida as a result of the storm. “It struck me that this was just what I should do for Idealist Day,” Nancy says. “The Bahamas is our closest foreign neighbor and we have many personal friends among the Bahamians. It had special meaning for me because of Marguerite.”
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