Newtown sets up task force to handle donations

NEWTOWN, Conn. — Chris Kelsey is the tax assessor in Newtown, but for the better part of three weeks, his job has been setting up and organizing a warehouse to hold the toys, school supplies and other gifts donated in the wake of the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary school.

Despite the town’s pleas to stop sending gifts, Kelsey said trucks have been arriving daily with tokens of support from across the world, some for the families of those killed, others for the children of Sandy Hook, still others for the town.

“A lot of the town’s normal business is still on pause,” he said. “I have a couple of people still doing assessor’s business, and then if they can, open mail a couple hours too. We’re all kind of doing what we can to get this done.”

A task force has been set up to coordinate the more than 800 volunteers working to sort the gifts, open mail and answer the thousands of emails and phone calls offering assistance.

The volunteers have begun making a dent in the pile of tens of thousands of teddy bears that stretched to the warehouse ceiling. By last week, they had sorted 30,000 of them into small, medium and large sizes, catalogued them and put them in boxes. They are also separating and boxing piles of crayons, pencils, books and much more. “It’s a ton of stuff, and we have an operation just as big for mail as well,” Kelsey said.

There are also 26 large moving boxes in the warehouse, each labeled with a victim’s name. When a gift comes in specifically addressed to those families, it goes in those boxes. The families have been coming in periodically to empty them.

A toy giveaway was held for all Newtown children before Christmas and some of the remaining toys have been taken to children’s hospitals. The rest will be stored until the town decides where they should go, Kelsey said. He said letters have been sent to victims’ families asking for their input. His cellphone is filled with emails from charities across the country. “Everybody has a hand out,” he said.

The work organizing the warehouse is being done by volunteers from Adventist Community Services, a faith-based group that has done similar work after natural disasters. “Our thing is warehouses,” said the Rev. William Warcholik, a pastor from Rhode Island. “Our specialty is collecting, organizing and distributing donated goods.”