[dropcap]A[/dropcap] team from the Hays Free Press and local residents will deliver hundreds of stuffed animals for children returning to school in Port Aransas this week.
In addition, a $500 check to help teachers purchase necessary classroom supplies was raised by a retired Hays High teacher who made decals in support of Port A.
Each student returning to Port Aransas Elementary will receive a stuffed animal as a welcome present.
Hays Free Press Publisher Cyndy Slovak-Barton said she got the idea after a similar donation was made to the elementary school in her hometown of West after the fertilizer explosion several years ago.
“My sister Sandra worked in the school and told me how much the stuffed animals meant to each child,” she said. “She said that the students started leaving the animals at school ‘where it was safe.
“If we can help the students of Port Aransas feel safe, then I think we have helped a bit in the crisis,” Slovak-Barton said.
Slovak-Barton is friends with the owners of the Port Aransas South-Jetty and reached out to them about how to help during the crisis.
Donations have been pouring in to the damaged coastal area since the destruction from Hurricane Harvey.
The stuffed animals were donated by area residents. Prisoners at the Kyle Correctional Facility also crocheted more than 30 small animals to add to the donation.
Since the call went out that the Kyle Correctional Facility was in need of yarn for future projects, baskets of yard have been donated at the Hays Free Press and since picked up by employees of the facility.
