As climate fueled disasters happen, we need to stick together. And when Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, ACE proved we could do just that with the energy, the enthusiasm and the action of teens around the country working together to support those in New York and New Jersey impacted by the storm.

When we circulated the idea around ACE, we thought we could make a difference, but little did we know…

The drives were more successful than we’d ever dreamed. It was truly impressive to see so many students rising to the call to help their peers in NYC and respond to this climate disaster. So first and foremost thank you to everyone who took part.

Overwhelming response made the task of receiving, finding homes for, and distributing the goods monumental. Throughout it all, Maayan and Lonna, our New York-based educators, have been dedicated to the mission of helping their students and teachers and have done an incredible job.

Speaking of the monumental number of goods we received, the next THANK YOU goes to all of the teachers, ACE Ambassadors and ACE educators in the field who worked with their teams to organize drives, collected the materials, sorted them, boxed, labeled, and shipped them to NYC.

Now, how impressive was this whole effort? Read on for some BIG digits (drum roll please….):

In the end, we collected 4,371 items for NYC. Holy cow!

What were all of those items, you might ask? Well, they were:

1554 articles of winter clothing, including:

317 Winter coats

416 hats, gloves, scarves

559 sweaters and sweatshirts

230 pants

1777 Toiletry items

864 School supplies

176 Blankets & towels

In addition, we received over $250 in donations from schools and over 130 notes from students to students.

Where did all these goods come from? They came from 20 schools in Atlanta, DC, Massachusetts, Maine, Wisconsin, Chicagoland, NorCal and SoCal.

I’m so impressed with everyone’s hard work and proud to be a part of ACE. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved in this effort!