St. Charles students help to make kids count

By Denise Dick | February 3, 2016 at 12:09a.m.

BOARDMAN

St. Charles School makes blankets for Making Kids Count

St. Charles School students huddled around tables in the cafeteria busying themselves with measuring, cutting and tying for a good cause.

The fifth- through eighth-graders were making blankets Tuesday morning for Making Kids Count, a nonprofit organization that helps children in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Ashtabula and Portage counties.

“We give Comfort Kits to children who are being removed from their homes and placed in foster homes,” said Shelly Marlowe of the organization.

The kits include pajamas, toiletries, school supplies and the blankets.

“Some of these kids leave their homes without anything or they have their things in a trash bag,” Marlowe said.

The St. Charles students enclosed a note with their blankets.

That and the fact the blankets are handmade makes them extra special, Marlowe said.

Eighth-grader Gina Ricciardi, 14, said the project is part of Catholic Schools Week observed at the school.

“When [a child] gets a blanket, I hope they get a sense that there are people in the community that care and who want to help them,” she said.

Andrew Knotten, 14, another eighth-grader, agreed.

“I want them to know that we do care,” he said.

Catholic Schools Week, which runs through Friday, allows students to focus on community service, Andrew added.

Dianne Pelini, whose youngest child, Michael, is a seventh-grader at St. Charles, spearheaded the blanket-making after it was suggested by another mom, Julie Sardich.

Throughout this week, students are bringing cans of soup for Martha’s Cupboard, housed in the school, as part the week’s activities, Pelini said.

Families who need help get food from Martha’s Cupboard to help them through tough times.

Another parent, Sarah Reichard, suggested students bring in soaps and washcloths for veterans at the veterans’ outreach clinic in Canton, Pelini said.

The school’s younger children learned from the Rev. Philip Rogers about the religious significance of votive candles used during Mass, Pelini said.

Students from Cardinal Mooney High School helped the younger children to make their own votives.

While students in the cafeteria measured and sliced strips along the sides to make the blankets uniform, their classmates in tied those strips binding the two-sided blankets together.

Sixth-graders Mick Hergenrother and Braedon Kurinski, both 12, and Jack Phillips and Ed Driscoll, both 11, worked together to complete their blankets.

Mick would like their creations to give the children who receive them hope “that they’ll be OK.”