For a P.S. 234 Parent, the Gifts Keep Giving

By April Koral

Thousands of letters, stuffed animals, drawings and books, dozens of handmade quilts and banners. The gifts to the once-displaced students of P.S. 234 started arriving in mid-September. Seven months later, they’re still coming. And Annie Luce, a P.S. 234 parent and the self-appointed archivist of this vast collection of good will, still cries when she opens them.

"It sounds corny," says Luce, as she fingers one of the thousands of origami cranes made by children from Japan that now cascade from the ceiling on the second floor at P.S. 234, "but I feel that each of these gifts is a statement about kindness and goodness, about people responding to evil, about showing our children that this is not the way we want the world to be."

Other downtown schools were inundated with gifts (see box), but P.S. 234, the subject of much publicity, received the most.

This month, after working hundreds of hours on weekends and evenings, Luce, a former conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has finally finished cataloguing the collection. Using a spreadsheet program taught her by the school’s administrative assistant, Yael Gottlieb, she has entered nearly every gift-giver. The list runs to more than 50 pages.

Many of the gifts and letters are stored in boxes in her loft on White Street, waiting to find a home someday at a museum in the school.

In the meantime, Luce and other parent volunteers have decorated the school with these heartfelt artifacts. Hung on the walls on the first floor are a dozen colorful quilts, one made by kindergartners from Crystal, Minn., another from the students at a Stamford, Conn., elementary school. On the second floor, students browse among some 2,000 books sent to the school. On display are also the homemade books that came from around the country and world, including one made by children from a small town in southern France.

Luce began organizing the gifts when the school was in residence at St. Bernard’s.

"I’d been hanging out in the school partly because of my own kids, she recalled "I wasn’t fearful, just uneasy. Anna [Switzer, the principal] saw me and said, ‘Are you doing anything?’ And gave me a stack of mail to sort through."

To Luce’s surprise, the letters were not filled with condolences, but with cheerful messages and a fair share of jokes, to make the kids "feel better."

As the mail poured in, other parents joined in to help, sorting letters and gifts, spending weekends writing thank-you notes.

"It amazes me the way people expressed their concern for the school," Luce said. "The kind of thoughtfulness behind the generosity." One group of teachers sent a gift of a shoe box for every teacher in the school filled with paper clips, scissors, and other classroom necessities.

The expressions of encouragement have been a gift to Luce, too. In the months following the attack, when fear and despair were palpable all around, she says they filled her with hope and courage.

"It gave me a sense of security and comfort to know that there were people there for us, who we could be in touch with, to support us," she said.

"When I would open a box with a present," she added, "it was like sunshine coming out."

Gifts Galore for P.S. 150 and P.S./I.S. 89, Too

Other downtown schools also received thousands of cards and gifts—including checks ranging from $1.50 to several thousand dollars—from across the country. Each school designed a thank-you card with student art or photos of its children.

P.S. 150 parents held a thank-you-card-writing party to respond to every donor. Principal Alyssa Polack and parents also devoted hours to cataloguing the donations.

"It was very moving, seeing all the different gifts, reading the notes and seeing the checks to P.S. 150 from people all over the country who were trying to help," said Judy Levine, co-chair of the school leadership team. "In some ways it was cathartic."

One woman knitted hats for every P.S. 150 child and a muffler for the principal.

At P.S. 89, PTA co-chair Maria Ouranitsas and a few other parents sorted through hundreds of boxes of gifts, reading every card and cataloguing every item; they’re still writing thank-you cards. "We were the lucky ones that went through them," said Ouranitsas. "It helped us."

The parents bundled cards and letters to give each class a stack every week for a few months. Ouranitsas said the PTA hopes to display many of the cards in binders.

Among the recent donations was $80 that a group of third graders raised by raking leaves and six boxes of stuffed animals from a school in Ohio.

The I.S. 89 PTA formed a thank-you committee to respond to the gifts, picking up a job begun by Principal Ellen Foote and PTA Co-chair Angela Fremont-Appel, who wrote the first few hundred cards.

"Every piece of communication from all over the country and abroad was deeply appreciated." said Fremont-Appel. "We were all very touched."