Rosalie Kolfschoten presenting a bag to a child recently.
PHILIPSBURG--Dutch educator Rosalie Kolfschoten from Prorege School in Amsterdam is currently in St. Maarten to help with the distribution of 600 bags filled with toys for children in St. Maarten which were donated by pupils from three schools in Amsterdam.
Kolfschoten said on Tuesday that she was showing pupils from her school news about St. Maarten post-Hurricane Irma and the children wanted to know how they could assist. The pupils began with a cake sale in which some 540 euros had been raised. This was sent to St. Maarten to the Care for Kids Foundation to assist locally.
Pupils wanted to help even more and they decided to get backpacks and each fill them with toys, school materials, a photo of themselves and personal postcard which they made with messages of strength which were placed in the backpacks.
Most of the 600 backpacks were shipped to St. Maarten with the assistance of TNT Express courier service. They are expected to arrive in the country today. Kolfschoten brought the backpacks that did not make it on the shipment in her luggage when she arrived in the country on December 25, and has already started to give them out to children in St. Maarten.
Once the big shipment arrives the backpacks will be handed over to the Care for Kids Foundation to be donated to children in St. Maarten who would need them.
Kolfschoten said “the idea was to connect the kids from Holland with the kids here ... It is to show that people care.” The educator said she had been busy with the project since the end of November and she is happy that it has now come to fruition. She has been here since Christmas day and will be departing back to Amsterdam this weekend.
