Friday November 23, 2012

Our family relocated to Lee from New Jersey just over six years ago and still has many family members and friends who reside there. The town of Union Beach in New Jersey is a few miles from where some of our friends and family members live. They were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy and many homes have been severely damaged or destroyed. The focus of the residents at this point is clean up and block after block, the sidewalks are lined with the contents of their homes as they try and salvage anything they can and rebuild their lives.

A week ago, we drove there with a truck full of clothes from some very generous folks in our area and were so moved by the gratitude of the people we met that had lost so much that we de cided to go down again this past weekend with much needed cleaning supplies and personal items.

The word officially went out in our community last Monday that we were making the trip again on Friday and that we would be putting these items directly in the hands of the people who needed them most. We were not prepared for the response we re ceived. We expected to possibly fill the back our truck with items, but ended up with a trailer full instead! The volunteers at the Relief Center we brought them to were not only surprised to see us a second week in a row, but overwhelmed by the generosity of our neighbors to donate so many needed supplies. They send their love from New Jersey!

Thank you so much to the faculty,

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students and families at Lee Elementary School (including a very special, personal donation made by one LES student). Thank you also to the very generous donations made by the Kiwanis Clubs of Lee and Shef field, Berkshire Bank, the Janice "Sissy" Curtin Memorial Fund, the employees at Cintas, the families at the Busy Bee Pre school, the Lee Youth Associ ation staff, Board of Directors and volunteers, and to the many individual donors who contributed. Special thanks to Buck Donovan and Paul Brown who helped us at the last minute with transportation when we realized there was no way we were going to get everything there with our current plan.

Words cannot express how moved and inspired we are by everyone’s generosity and willingness to help and we could not be more proud to call Lee our home.

DAWN MICALE

SEAN PURCELL

JACK PURCELL

JAMES PURCELL

Lee