BJF Hosts Holiday Reading with Film Star Samantha Mathis and Other SAG Foundation Actors, Donates 600 Brooke Packs to Far Rockaway Children

 

Using the joy of books and live performance to ease the pain caused by Hurricane Sandy, the  Brooke Jackman Foundation (BJF), in partnership with Safe Space and the SAG Foundation, hosted a dramatic Holiday Reading on December 18th with 200 children at P.S. 362 in Far Rockaway, a school which only recently reopened after suffering devastating damage from Hurricane Sandy.

 

Actors from the SAG Foundation's BookPALS children's literacy program - including film actress Samantha Mathis, Broadway legend Kimilee Bryant from The Phantom of the Opera, Dana Marie Ingraham from Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, and Dionne Figgins from Motown: The Musical - performed in the theatrical reading.

 

Following the reading, Mathis and the other actors assisted BJF Executive Director Erin Jackman in distributing Brooke Packs - backpacks filled with school supplies and books - to each of the children.

 

Additional Brooke Packs and books donated on December 18th were delivered to Safe Space, an organization coordinating relief efforts for families affected by Hurricane Sandy in Far Rockaway. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, BJF has donated 600 Brooke Packs to children in the Rockaways and more than 3,000 Brooke Packs and books to children affected by the storm throughout the New York region.

 

To learn more about BJF's Sandy relief efforts and how you can get involved, please visit www.brookejackmanfoundation.org or email info@brookejackmanfoundation.org.

 

You can also give the gift of reading this holiday season by purchasing ABC My Family and Me, a collection of 26 illustrated anecdotes about the joys of family life, written and illustrated by kids from our literacy programs.

 

 

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