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Josie Whitney Sets A Goal to Collect 12,000 Cans of PlayDoh

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mrs whitney holds cans of playdoh

In 2014, third grade teacher Mrs. Josie Whitney had a modest goal to collect 2,000 cans of PlayDoh in March to help honor the late brother of a Lorane student she taught the year before. His name was Jason Heckman, and through his battle with brain cancer, she discovered that the four year old loved to play with PlayDoh during the time he was being treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

Although Jason never had a chance to be a student at Lorane like his sister and brothers, he’s left an indelible impression on the school and community as he’s remembered each year and honored through Mrs. Whitney’s annual PlayDoh drive, which she holds every March. Last year, her collection netted a record-high 12,338 cans of the colorful doh, which she personally delivers to CHOP to help other children who can only use one can one time since it can’t be sanitized between uses. 

This year, Mrs. Whitney hopes to collect another 12,000 cans of PlayDoh to help honor Jason. If you’d like to help her reach her goal and donate to her drive, you may drop off PlayDoh donations at Lorane anytime during school hours, or you may send donations directly to the school, which is located at 699 Rittenhouse Drive, Reading, PA 19606. To learn more about Mrs. Whitney’s annual collection, please see our story from last year, or WFMZ’s story here: https://bit.ly/403LoSF. 

District to Host Drug Awareness Workshop for Families in January

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picture of assorted edibles and vapes
picture of edibles
picture of teachers crowded around a table

“This,” said Exeter Township Detective Sergeant Rocco DeCamillo as he pointed to a table filled with confiscated THC-laced gummies, brownies, cookies and treats, “was not manufactured to appeal to adults. It was manufactured to look like candy to appeal to kids.” 

As part of the district’s professional development sessions with educators and staff last month, Detective Sergeant DeCamillo spent his day walking teachers, administrators and staff through the ever-complex and constantly-changing landscape of what drugs police are seeing being sold and being used in Exeter Township by adults and minors alike. “Things have drastically changed in the last 20 years. When the majority of us were in high school, marijuana was natural and looked like pot. Now, there’s so much synthetic stuff out there that’s chemically-produced with no regulation or oversight–and much of it’s been disguised to look like candy.”

Superintendent Dr. Christy Haller and Assistant Superintendent Mrs. Dawn Harris organized the session with Detective Sergeant DeCamillo and the district’s Student Services Coordinator, Mrs. Alycia Lenart, to bring a greater awareness to teachers of what’s out there, what it looks like, and how to engage students and their families with help for substance abuse. The sessions proved to be so popular with educators that Detective Sergeant DeCamillo and Mrs. Lenart decided to offer a similar session to parents and families so that they, too, could learn what police are seeing in the local community, and how to receive support through the district when families are faced with substance abuse. The parent and family session will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 7PM in Exeter Township Senior High School’s Large Group Instruction (LGI) room. 

During his presentation to teachers, Detective Sergeant DeCamillo said navigating the “new normal” of drug use and drug accessibility is not easy. Oftentimes, he said as he pointed to all of the items on the table, local retailers don’t even know what’s legal to sell and what isn’t since laws vary from state to state. “Most of this stuff is perfectly legal in New Jersey,” he said. Mrs. Lenart added, “I think there’s also a perception that since it’s legal in certain states, it must be perfectly safe, and it’s really not,” she said, as she ticked off statistics that indicate that 90% of ER admittance for marijuana or THC overdoses are from edibles. “It takes anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours for kids to feel the effect from an edible. Since most teens don’t have great patience, they think it’s not working, so they eat more, and more and more and then wind up in the hospital. That’s why it’s so important to bring awareness to this very scary issue.”

Budget Workshops Announced

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As the Exeter Township School District begins to shape the budget for the 2023-24 school year, the District will hold a series of workshops to discuss budget topics with the community. Parents, taxpayers and all members of the Exeter community are invited to join us for these meetings. The schedule for the next two upcoming workshops and topics are below. The District will also post a synopsis of each budget workshop on our website shortly after each meeting.

The next two meetings are scheduled for:

October 26th at 6PM
Location: Junior High
Topic: Overview and Purpose of Workshop Meetings/Index Review

November 30th at 6PM
Location: Senior High
Topic: Revenue

Exeter Area Food Pantry Finds New Home in Old Gym

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volunteers from food pantry stand in gym

When Karen Williams was a Lorane kindergarten teacher, she mentioned to her husband, Jack, that she had a surprising number of students who were eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches. To see what they could do, Jack and Karen approached the Greater Berks Food Bank (now called Helping Harvest) to assist the Exeter community in need. “When we went out there, they told us that 19606 and 19508 were the most underserved zip codes in the county. It was shocking.”

And that is how the idea of the Exeter Area Food Pantry began a dozen years ago. 

With the help of area churches, donations and volunteers, the Williams and a steering committee established the EAFP and began operating out of Reformation Lutheran Church serving approximately 10 families a month. However, as need grew within the community during the next decade, the EAFP started to run out of space at Reformation–which happened at the exact time that the pandemic hit. Explaining how it was a perfect storm of increased demand, lack of space, and the need to find a building that could provide them with a place to operate outside safely during the initial days of the pandemic, Karen said that the pantry couldn’t believe their good luck when the district approached them and offered them space in the Administration Building. “It was just phenomenal,” she said. 

Since the spring of 2021, the pantry has coordinated volunteers to come in several days before “the give,” as it’s called, to receive deliveries and stage food in the former gym of Lausch Elementary. During the early days of the pandemic, volunteers collected food for those in need and delivered it safely outside to a line of cars that pulled up under the former bus drop off, where both food and volunteers stayed dry in poor weather conditions and where people could safely interact with social distancing guidelines in place. Now, with those guidelines gone, the gym transforms into a grocery store each month as those in need come inside with shopping carts to pick and choose food themselves from the tables that are stacked with fresh fruit and vegetables, canned goods and baked items. The give also offers Senior High students an opportunity to earn their community service hours as students help elderly or disabled shoppers load their cars with groceries, or pick and choose items from the neatly-arranged tables. 

While the EAFP still receives approximately 90% of their food from Helping Harvest, Karen said that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to close the gap between what Helping Harvest is able to provide and what the community needs. “We’re now serving at least 200 families–and that number continues to rise every month.” She said Helping Harvest was only able to supply about 75% of their food this month–which necessitated them to use direct food donations and monetary donations they’ve received to supplement this month’s expected need. 

As need continues to rise, the Pantry finds itself also in need of more donations and more volunteers. For those who are interested in helping, monetary donations can be directed to Reformation Lutheran Church with a notation that the donation should be given to the Pantry. People who are interested in donating food can do so through a number of locally-organized food drives, such as the collection that the Latin Club organizes during next week’s Safe Halloween Night, or they can drop off food at the Administration Building on the third Thursday of each month from 8-11AM. She said the pantry will also accept canned food that is up to a year past its expiration date if it’s in good condition. Volunteers are always needed as well–including students who are looking for community service hours–and can coordinate their time by contacting the Pantry’s volunteer coordinator, Susan Swavely, at eafpvolunteers@nullgmail.com.

For those who need food assistance, the Pantry operates the third Friday of every month at the Exeter Township Administration Building in the afternoons from 1:30-5:30. Those in need are asked to call ahead at 610-572-2334 so that the Pantry can stock appropriately for each month’s give. 

For more information about donating to or receiving help from the Pantry, please visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ExeterAreaFoodPantry.

Exeter’s New Supervisor of Transportation Earns National Recognition

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school bus driver holds magazine

It's National School Bus Safety week, and we're so very proud to announce that Exeter's Kaisha McCulley was recently selected as one of ten "Rising Stars" by School Transportation News, a nationwide trade magazine for school bus drivers and professionals. Ms. McCulley, who was named Exeter's Supervisor of Transportation during last night's board meeting, has been a bus driver for the district for 8 years. Last year, she became the district's permanent route substitute, which meant she had memorized every route in the district without using a GPS, and could substitute for any bus driver–a monumental task, said Ms. McCulley’s supervisor, Benjamin Bernhart, Director of Transportation. Last year, she also earned accreditation as a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation CDL school bus instructor trainer, allowing her to manage the district's training program for new and existing bus drivers.

“We’re so proud that Kaisha earned this distinction,” said Mr. Bernhart. “She is an incredibly dedicated bus driver and bus professional who is committed to safety and always learning more to enable Exeter to have the best school bus drivers. We are so very lucky to have her, and congratulate her for receiving this national recognition.”