Letters to Santa from elementary school students in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn open a heartbreaking window on urban poverty. The letters in the New York Daily News ask for food, clothes, a better place to live and money for college as their gifts this year.
“I need food,” wrote one P.S. 241 student. “I need . . . not to starve every morning, noon and evening. I just can’t take it anymore. Me and my family are hungry.”
The 571 prekindergarten through fifth-grade students at the school were assigned to write letters laying out their needs this holiday season so teachers and others could help, the Daily News reports. “These are issues on a grand scale and issues that highlight the disparity that continues to exist in Brooklyn,” says City Councilwoman Letitia James, who according to the Daily News, thought the kids would request dolls, bikes and other toys. “I cried when I read these letters,” said James, who is collecting donations. “These children are carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders.” The letters also include pleas for a new stove, money to pay the bills and new homes because of mice, crime and overcrowding.
“My mom and dad had money but it’s for food and clothes and bills,” wrote one child. “I don’t want me going to college to take from food and clothes and bills. I know college is far away from [now] but, can you help me with my college fund,” wrote a fifth-grader.
PS 241 Principal Philip Dominique says the letters reflect the most extreme cases at the school, where 81% of students are considered poor.
Bleak, indeed.
Perhaps the newly appointed Arne Duncan (Secretary of Education) will be able to turn things around for PS 241 and others.
Said he:
“Hungry children are distracted children. We want to make sure nothing gets in the way of our children performing well academically, including hunger.”