JFK 4th grader spearheads ‘Boodle Brigade’ collection

This holiday season, Canton fourth grader Kelly MacDonald and her Kennedy School classmates are doing their part to bring a little joy to soldiers currently serving overseas.

Kelly MacDonald

MacDonald, a student in Jessica Joslyn’s class, recently spearheaded a “Boodle Brigade” collection drive in honor of her brother Brendan, a first-year cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Brendan, a JFK alum and a 2013 graduate of Canton High School, is training to be an officer and will be stationed overseas upon his graduation in 2017.

MacDonald said her brother’s enrollment at West Point moved her to want to help other soldiers — especially those who are serving on foreign soil. So she invited every class to donate “boodle” — the cadet term for care-package items — and the students happily obliged, filling dozens of boxes with an assortment of toiletries, snacks, books, and letters.

Last Wednesday, MacDonald’s parents and her brother Aaron, a CHS sophomore, came to the school to collect the packages, and together, with other local military families, they will ship them to Afghanistan in time for the holidays.

“The soldiers in Afghanistan do not get to come home during the holidays and be with their families,” MacDonald wrote in a letter to her fellow JFK students. “Sending care packages to the soldiers makes them realize that people back home haven’t forgotten them and that they are appreciated.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Dec 5 2013. Filed under News, Schools. Both comments and pings are currently closed.