By JEFF STITT
A few weeks ago, McKeesport Councilman Tim Brown “heard it through the grapevine” that there were some kids in the city who would be heading back to school on Tuesday without new backpacks.
Brown, who runs the Men of Valor Inc. mentoring group and works for McKeesport Area School District, said it troubled him to learn that there were youngsters in the city who would be getting on the school bus and entering the classroom “without basic learning essentials like a backpack, pencils and notebooks.”
Responding to the problem, Brown, assisted by School Board Director Jim Brown, quickly assembled some of his fellow MOV mentors and Mayor Michael Cherepko to come up with a plan to provide free book bags filled with school supplies to kids.
To make it happen, Tim Brown, Cherepko and Mayor’s Assistant Jennifer Vertullo took a shopping trip and purchased 150 backpacks of varying sizes, colors and styles. Other MOV mentors went around town asking churches, friends and neighbors for donations of school supplies to fill the bags.
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