During the course of the past thirteen years, Kool FM has been faithfully delivering bags of school supplies to primary school students through a venture known as KooL FM’s Children’s Day.
In 2007, when the custom began, the Social Security Board came on board as a joint team player with the radio station. Since then, Kool FM went on its own with Social Security still being an active sponsor. Other appreciative entities and individuals have since stepped in to keep the initiative going. Today, Tropical Shipping USA, LLC is the main contributing sponsor.
Customarily, children between the ages of 5 – 15 years gathered on a park for a full day’s activity which included educational sessions, bouncing castles, lunch, games and the distribution of back-packs containing school items.
This year instead, with a late shipment and a reduction of items, the committee decided to take the back-to-school supplies to the public primary schools to distribute to the children there. The distributions were done on Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd September.
KooL FM Children’s Day has been the brain child of Leroy “Bro. Lee” Richardson, Manager of the radio station. He is the President of KooL FM’s Children’s Day. The Anguillian asked Him to share more information with the public on the background behind the school supplies venture.
“In 2007 we started our school supplies distribution under a skeleton committee with Ms. Irma Carty as Vice President and Ms. Monique Webster as the Secretary, “Not long after, an individual by the name of Joseph “Joe B” Williams who resides in the U.S., heard about the programme and decided to contribute for the sake of the children. Joseph lives in Miami, Florida, and is an employee of Tropical Shipping there. He approached his employer in solicitation of sponsorship, and Tropical was happy to get on board immediately.”
Brother Lee added: “Apart from the sponsorship by Tropical Shipping, Joe B was influential in garnering the support of a few of his friends and associates in Miami to contribute towards the cause. We were very fortunate in acquiring Joe’s assistance, because our own fundraisers here alone could never have been able to meet the scope and regularity of the distribution program every year.”
Brother Lee further noted that this year, due to business interruptions posed by COVID-19, expectations from Tropical were rather low, considering the fact that Joe B usually shops for the supplies during Black Friday and the holiday season. “This year, we forecast less shopping opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we will still continue the programme, and we will be observing our 14th year next year, even though it will be on a reduced scale,” he said.
Secretary of the Committee, Ms. Monique Webster, stated: “The Kool FM Children’s Day Committee would like to thank our U.S. sponsors, Tropical Shipping USA, LLC in Miami Florida, for their continued support as well as Joseph Williams, our External Liaison Officer/Purchaser, for his continued hard work. Thanks also to Claude Clevinger, Merrilee Gorman, Mr & Mrs Melvin of Sincere 2000 Foundation and Jackie Rogers.
“We are also grateful to our local contributors, including: the Department of Education; the Government of Anguilla; the Customs Department; Zarna Brokerage & Trucking; Wayne Reid of Waste Tech; Haskins Ltd.; Kirthly Richardson and the Children’s Day team. Thanks for working with us in making this annual event a success. We highly appreciate your support.”
– Staff Reporter, James R. Harrigan
