COLUMBUS – As they have been doing since horse-drawn carts probably outnumbered horseless carriages on the streets of Columbus, white-garbed volunteers will fan out across the city Saturday morning, hawking newspapers at intersections and taking donations to help buy clothes for needy children.
Charity Newsies has been providing children with new school clothes since 1907 and will resume its efforts at about 80 intersections in Columbus and surrounding communities, where more than 400 volunteers – including at least one dressed as Elvis — will be selling special editions of The Columbus Dispatch between 8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. in hopes of raising about $400,000 to buy clothing for schoolkids.
“That money – all 100 percent, which is unique about our charitable organization…will go toward purchasing brand-new clothing for the children,” said Tony Perez, chair of the 2016 fund drive.
More than 12,000 children have gotten new school clothes from Charity Newsies in 2016 and Perez thinks the group might eventually help as many as 13,500 children, many of whom live in suburban communities formerly considered affluent enough to not require charity.
“I’ve been a newsie for nine years, it was always the inner city, that’s where the biggest need was but now you’re starting to see it go out into the suburb areas and it’s an area that maybe, in the future, we should start looking a little more at,” Perez said.
Children receive approximately $150 worth of new clothing, including hats, gloves, scarves, coats, shirts, pants, underwear and a voucher for shoes.
During the 2015-16 school year, Charity Newsies served 11,665 children in 420 public and private schools in Franklin County, from the Olentangy Local Schools in the north to Groveport-Madison in the south and from Hilliard to Reynoldsburg.