WEST ORANGE, NJ – Fifth grade students at Kelly Elementary School prepared 60 “Blankets of Hope” for distribution to the local homeless community.

ELA teacher Kelly Clancy spearheaded the project.

“I reached out to an organization called Blankets of Hope, and we were accepted for the project,” she began.

Blankets of Hope is a non-profit organization founded by brothers Mike and Nick Fiorito in Brooklyn during the 2016-17 winter. The brothers, looking to establish a meaningful entrepreneurial business, decided to help out the local homeless community in the interim. With the help of family and friends, they delivered 100 hand-fashioned blankets to the community. When venture capitalist Todd Chaffee saw a video about the effort, he partnered with the Fioritos and Blankets of Hope was born.

Part of the mission is to expand the outreach exponentially, and Blankets of Hope has partnered with schools in 45 states to help. The blankets are sent directly to schools, where students participate in a Kindness Workshop and create messages of hope and encouragement that are attached to the blankets. They are then distributed to the homeless community.

“We reached out to the Holy Trinity-West Orange Food Pantry, and they agreed to pick up the blankets on April 8 at Kelly,” she said.

Food pantry administrator Cynthia Cumming picked up the blankets, and they will be distributed to homeless community members via the pantry, soup kitchen, and local outreach.

To date, Blankets of Hope has partnered with over 500 schools across the country and donated over 150,000 blankets and notes to the community. Read more about Blankets of Hope HERE.

Kelly Fifth grade students with blankets

Cynthia Cumming of HTWO with Kelly ELA teacher Kelly Clancy