These kids have Thanksgiving in the bag!
Students at a Park Slope school on Thursday drew crayon turkeys, rainbows, and other sweet sentiments on paper bags that will be stuffed with free Thanksgiving meals for New Yorkers with debilitating illnesses, whom the kids hope will enjoy the food as much as its charming packaging.
“It made me happy doing this thing for somebody who is sick and can’t go shopping, or make food, and who can’t do many things,” said 9-year-old Andrew, who sketched a fuzzy bunny, a pumpkin with a hat, and the head of a bear — whose body, he claims, he forgot to draw.
The bags decorated by the fourth graders at PS 107 are part of a whopping 4,000-plus that students citywide are customizing between now and Turkey Day, when do-good group God’s Love We Deliver will use them to deliver some of the 1.8-million annual meals it brings to folks battling such illnesses as HIV, cancer, and multiple sclerosis, who cannot shop for or prepare food themselves.
Kids at the Eighth Avenue elementary school spent about an hour doodling on as many bags as they wanted, with one young lady turning out six paper pouches, including one with a rainbow over a dancing turkey and the proclamation “I love rainbows.”
Her inspiration, she said, was the sheer joy the brightly colored bags will bring those who receive them.
“I thought about how their faces will look when they see it,” said 9-year-old Aliyah.
And recipients really do love the youngsters’ work, according to a God’s Love We Deliver spokesman, who said their Thanksgiving-meal delivery is easily one of the group’s most popular, in large part due of the festive packaging.
“Our clients really, really appreciate it,” said Emmett Findley. “It’s a full, traditional Thanksgiving feast, with turkey, gravy, pumpkin bisque, and apples crisp, and to have that holiday meal wrapped up in this bag is special for them.”
