CANOGA PARK : Service Group Gives Jackets to Pupils in Need

It was a chilly early afternoon as Julianne Campbell, a kindergarten and first-grade teacher at Justice Street Elementary School in Canoga Park, made her way from the main office to the auditorium.

She was stopped several times by children, all with the same question: “Do we get our jackets today?”

It has been a question that Campbell has had to deal with for about a month, ever since the school got word that it would get winter coats for its needy children from the Assistance League of the San Fernando Valley.

On Tuesday, Campbell could finally say, “Yes, the jackets are here.”

For the last two years, the league has fitted Justice Street Elementary School children with new shoes, and given them backpacks for the last four years.

Three other local schools--Tarzana Elementary, Capistrano Avenue and Hamlin Street--will also receive jackets for their needy children as part of the league’s Operation School Bell.

Not all the jackets fit, in this, the first time that the league has given them to children at Justice Street. A handful of the children had to go away empty-handed because there were not enough jackets in their size. But Jeanette Devine, an Assistance League member, promised: “These kids will all get their jackets.”

The colorful, reversible jackets were purchased with proceeds from a fund-raising luncheon last month. League officials were not sure how soon the remaining children will get jackets.

About 30 jackets were handed out Tuesday afternoon.

“I like this one,” a fourth-grade girl said as she tried on a brightly colored jacket.

“They are pretty, aren’t they?” said Virginia Cobb, another Assistance League member as she helped the girl, who said she was looking forward to wearing the jacket when she goes skating Saturday.

“I like it because of the colors and how it changes back and forth,” the girl said. Now, she said she could return an oversized jacket that her cousin had loaned her.

“I’ll take good care of this,” said a 9-year-old third-grader who said she had been wearing the same jacket since she was 6. “I feel warmer already.”