Local students take big strides for CHS

Release date: 5/14/2008

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., May 14, 2008 – Clutching handmade tote bags filled with essentials such as toothpaste and pajamas, students from Palm Springs Community Middle School marched down Forest Hill Boulevard to Children’s Home Society of Florida’s (CHS) South Coastal Division. Their mission: to present CHS with a dozen hand-sewn, teal and yellow tote bags packed with items for infants to teenagers who have been placed in emergency care.

The nine middle-school students are members of Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). They began crafting the tote bags as part of this year’s FCCLA state project, “Take Care Totes.” Since January, members asked friends and family for donations while they continued to assemble their creative tote bags.

The group’s leader and FCCLA chapter adviser, Drema Brazelton, has been teaching family and consumer science at Palm Springs Community Middle School for 34 years. She said her students were delighted to have the chance to help children in need.

“I knew CHS was somewhere we could bring the totes, and that they would be used for a good cause,” Drema says.

Eighth-grader Kristen Pittman is Palm Springs Community Middle School’s FCCLA chapter president and wants to continue collecting donations for children are in emergency care at CHS.

“I know CHS takes great care of kids, and I want to keep helping them help others because kids are so important to our community,” Kristen says.

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