In Portsmouth: Assembly line puts together packages for homeless

Pennfield School students collect items to be distributed to needy

By Jim McGaw
Posted 12/14/18

PORTSMOUTH — In front of more than 170 Pennfield School students gathered in the gymnasium Thursday, Jan Armor took off his right shoe to reveal a hole in his sock.

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


In Portsmouth: Assembly line puts together packages for homeless

Pennfield School students collect items to be distributed to needy

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — In front of more than 170 Pennfield School students gathered in the gymnasium Thursday, Jan Armor took off his right shoe to reveal a hole in his sock.

Some students giggled, but Mr. Armor was making a point: This is what homeless people live with every day, he said. We take socks for granted, he told students, but for some needy folks they’re a luxury.

Mr. Armor, who used to have a photography studio in Portsmouth before he and his wife moved to Wakefield years ago, was at Pennfield to talk about why students were there — to assembly “Panther Bags” (the animal is the school’s mascot) for homeless people in Providence.

Going on five years now, Mr. Armor has been volunteering at the Sunday “Friendship Breakfasts” at Mathewson Street United Methodist Church in the capital city.

“They feed between 800 and 1,000 people every month there — mostly men and women, but a few families and some children. The need is great,” Mr. Armor said.

He explained to students the meaning behind the meal’s name: “The people who come to the breakfasts don’t have a lot of friends, so they come to make new friends. Many are hungry and homeless. A lot of them bring a bag, because they don’t have a place to put anything.”

Mr. Armor’s daughter, Jenny Williams, is a pre-K teacher at Pennfield, along with Judy Hall. The two women spearheaded a student effort last year to collect staple items to be distributed to homeless residents during a church breakfast last year. 

It also involved the school’s popular “buddy program” that links older students with those in the lower school on various projects. The service project was so successful, the teachers to decided to ask the entire student body — 173 students — to take part this year.

“Last year, Judy and I wanted to do something in December with our class,” Ms. Williams said. “We were buddied with the third grade. My dad was telling us that the people he serves needed socks and toothbrushes and toothpaste. It was so well-received last year, and now it’s blossomed into this.”

“We have a season of gratitude that we’ve adopted at Pennfield, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we thought this would be a great culminating activity,” Ms. Hall added.

The two teachers are also members of the same congregation at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, where they planned on duplicating the program with some teenagers on Friday. Ms. Williams’ daughter, Clair, and her niece, Allie, were planning to help bring the donated packages to the Providence church’s breakfast for distribution on Sunday.

Assembly line operation

Each class was assigned to collect various staples that homeless residents need most — socks, knit hats, chapstick, mittens or gloves, toothbrushes and deodorant. They also donated granola bars and miniature candy, and each Ziplock bag also contained a green card explaining that the packs were made “with love,” along with a poem on the back entitled, “Smiling is infectious.”

Students worked together in an assembly line-style operation, gathering in four lines around long tables to put together about 90 “Panther Packs.” They also got something to take home — a card explaining what “generosity” means.

“In the lower school, the citizen of the month trait was generosity,” explained Ms. Williams. “The kids will take these home and then write ways they’ve been generous on the back.”

Pennfield School

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.