New Orleans kids receive aid

A Bayonne-based nonprofit group played Santa Claus to Gulf Coast hurricane victims last week.

Operation Interdependence, which collects and ships supplies and mail to American military personnel overseas year-round, widened its focus by arranging for delivery of 1,500 backpacks filled with school materials, toys, pajamas and letters to New Orleans schoolchildren, said Anthony Ward, who coordinated the effort.

"We at Operation Interdependence gave our word that the people of New Orleans would receive this aid before Christmas, and we kept our word," Ward said last Wednesday, just before boarding a plane to head back north.

Ward credited youths from Bayonne parochial and public schools with donating the backpacks and materials, and thanked students from Bayonne's Holy Family Academy and St. Peter's Preparatory School, Jersey City, for sorting and packing the items for age-appropriate recipients.

For transportation help, Ward said he reached out to mayoral chief of staff James Dugan, son of the former state senator, who, in turn, secured the services of Francis Walsh, of Walsh Trucking Co., of Secaucus.

RONALD LEIR