Service with a smile
Sen. Linda Gray, R-10, fits 6-year-old Blanca Collazo into a new backpack at the philanthropy center of the

Kindergartners from Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School got new clothes and backpacks, thanks to a Phoenix philanthropy group and a little senatorial courtesy.
The senator — Linda Gray, R-10 — spent a recent morning in the philanthropy center at the Assistance League of Phoenix, helping volunteers outfit children in need. The Assistance League supplied school clothing, while the National Foundation of Women Legislators arranged to provide backpacks.
Office Depot donated the backpacks. Ms. Gray brought 175 of them to the center in her car. She gave a lot of credit for the donations to Robin Read, the foundation’s director.
“She was the one who worked for getting the backpacks for women legislators across the America,” Ms. Gray said. For those children out of town, other arrangements were made.
Rep. Cheryl Chase, R-23, was on her way to the Gila River Indian Community with a load of backpacks for schoolchildren there, Ms. Gray said.
In Phoenix, she said, the Assistance League’s center was just the place to make sure the backpacks got to the children who needed them.
She had visited the center before. It sits inside her district.
“I saw how good the Assistance League was in helping children,” she said.
The Phoenix Assistance League is part of a national nonprofit group. At the beginning of the school year, through Operation School Bell, Assistance League chapters across the country help disadvantaged schoolchildren get clothing and other school supplies.
On this morning, some 30 kindergartners from Evelyn Roman’s class filed into the league’s center near John C. Lincoln Hospital. The building once housed a church. The pews have since been replaced and the building remodeled. In one corner, the place has a reading room and learning center paid for by Phoenix Suns Charities. On the other side of the building is a storage room where volunteers sort and unpack incoming supplies.
The rest of the center resembles a well-stocked store. Aisles run between shelves of pants, shirts and athletic shoes. They are not discards. All the items are new, according to volunteers. (There are no paid staff members in the Phoenix philanthropy center.) Assistance League buyers purchase the bulk of clothing at trade shows in Las Vegas.
Much of the center’s funding comes from the Phoenix Assistance League’s thrift shop, on Seventh Street north of Glendale Avenue.
The national Assistance League Web site said Operation School Bell helps more than a million schoolchildren on a nationwide budget of more than $9 million.
“Locally, our budget is about $220,000, just for Operation School Bell,” said Nelda Crowell, president of the Phoenix league chapter.
Some 3,500 Phoenix-area schoolchildren, grades kindergarten through six, benefited from Operation School Bell last year, Ms. Crowell said. They center works with 29 Phoenix-area elementary schools that have a high percentage of children who quality for free lunches.
Each child gets two pairs of pants (or skirts), three shirts, a sweatshirt, six pairs of socks and underwear, a pair of athletic shoes, a hygiene kit, a book — and, on this morning, a backpack.
As 6-year-old Blanca Collazo stepped forward, Ms. Gray went over the checklist on a clipboard.
She walked through the aisles with Blanca, helping her chose the correct size. As Emerson requires school uniforms, Blanca was fitted with a white shirt and a khaki “skort,” a skirt-like pair of shorts.
Then Blanca tried on her backpack, with Ms. Gray’s help.
For any politician, a photo-op with smiling kids is the gold standard of publicity. But Ms. Gray, who has no primary opposition, clearly enjoyed helping out.
And she acknowledged the effort of Assistance League volunteers.
“These ladies worked through summer to get this prepared. I get the pleasure of seeing the expression on the kids’ faces,” Ms. Gray said.