Legion Riders deliver much-needed supplies to local elementary school

With a new school year starting prior to the onset of the pandemic, members of American Legion Riders Chapter 129 in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., learned from a teacher that has connections to the post that she would spend hundreds of dollars of her own money to purchase school supplies for students who were unable to pay for all of their supplies.

And that didn’t sit well with Chapter 129 and was the reason it started its backpack supplies program. For around six years, the Riders have provided backpacks full of school supplies and delivered them to a different school each year.

This year the recipient was Neptune Beach Elementary School, which was provided with 66 full backpacks.

“We decided to help our community out by doing the school supply drive,” said Past Auxiliary Unit 129 President and the former Chapter 129 Membership Chairman Mary Tarnowski. “We’re in a military town. We have a lot of military families … that really run short of money for school supplies. We’ve got a lot of needy families in the area.”

The first-ever donation was made to San Pablo Elementary School. Staff and students and their families were gathered outside with signs thanking the Riders.

“After that first initial contact, we decided it was something that we, as Riders, needed to do for the community,” Tarnowski said. “(Elizabeth Kavanagh) is the principal at Neptune Beach, which we recently delivered to, and she couldn’t thank us enough.”

Members of Chapter 129 donate school supplies at the post throughout the year; Post 129 also donated $1,000, while Unit 129 contributed $200.

“We also try to get some supplies for the teachers,” Tarnowski said. “They wanted tissues, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes … and we always try to get them some copy paper.”