Riverhead Schools to join County Lost & Found Program

On Tues. Dec 3 at 11 am, Leaving Footprints on Long Island conducted its first County-wide School Lost & Found Pickup to benefit local families in crisis.

Christie Leonard, Principal of Dawnwood Middle School in Centereach, scheduled an early pickup when she first heard of this new program. Her Lost and Found bins were overflowing, and she was unsure of the best way to dispose of the students’ many unclaimed items.

Her answer arrived in the form of one huge white van and a back-up SUV, both of which were packed by Dawnwood students and faculty, with the help of River of Life of NY.

Leaving Footprints in Suffolk County, an all- volunteer non-profit, has launched a program whereby schools’ unclaimed Lost and Found contents are systematically picked up and distributed to local shelters and other organizations that assist our neighbors here in Suffolk.

Schools are taking advantage of an easy on-line scheduling process to arrange pickups of all unclaimed items: clothing, backpacks, lunchboxes, shoes, etc. during winter vacation and again after closing in June. Some ambitious schools are combining the pickups with coat drives and other school-based outreach programs.  Participating districts already include Mount Sinai, Miller Place, Riverhead, Sachem and Middle Country, with enrollment for December pickups still open at www.leavingfootprints.org.

 Founder Virginia Armstrong explained, “With the help and enthusiasm of our school administrators and teachers, we are on our way to making a major impact on the lives of many Long Islanders who are facing hard times. There is no better example to set in the education of our next generation.”

This new voluntary system will provide a steady supply of gently-used items to those who need them while relieving schools of the necessity of making arrangements for their disposal.