Local Students, Pipe Band Raise Money for Katrina Victims

Jim Lowney Photo

Union County, NJ--As she watched heart-wrenching images of children affected by Hurricane Katrina on the television news, 12-year-old Katie Dooley of Linden knew she wanted to do something to help and didn’t hesitate to take action. By joining forces with two friends from St. John the Apostle School in Clark and the Union County Police and Fire Pipes and Drums Band, she helped raise $2,000 for the Katrina relief effort.

With the pipe band’s annual Pub Night scheduled a few days after the waters burst though the levees in New Orleans, Katie asked if she and her friends, Emily Lubas, 11, of Linden and Caitlyn Stine, 12, of Roselle, could set up a collection table for Katrina’s victims at the band’s fund raiser. As police officers and firefighters living in an area hard hit by the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 the band could easily empathize with the grief and loss experience in the Gulf Coast and readily agreed with the girls’ relief collection plan.

Katie started off the collection drive with her own donation of $81 she was saving for clothes shopping.

"What am I going to do with it, buy more clothes? I have plenty, they have nothing," she said when asked about her generous donation.

Sitting at a table sporting a large collage of news photos and newspaper stories about Hurricane Katrina, the three girls collected $900 for victims of the storm during Pub Night.

The Union County Police and Fire Pipes and Drums Band donated $1,100 generated by a 50/50 raffle during their fund raiser directly to the Katrina collection bringing the grand total to $2,000.

The New Jersey State Firemen’s Benevolent Association (F.M.B.A.) has chosen Save the Children as one of the organizations they support in times of need. One hundred percent of the money collected by Save the Children goes directly to the victims, and they have a Katrina relief effort in place. Ed Donnelly, founder of the Pipe Band and a firefighter in Union, will make a presentation of the money collected during Pub Night at the State F.M.B.A. convention in Wildwood.

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