BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Kim Riggs helps fit Daniel Sepulveda for a new jacket at Bordewich-Bray Elementary school on Thursday. Top photo, Heather Thomas helps Lizbeth Ramirez, 7, try on a coat, while SBC volunteer Mary Ellen Radtke looks on.
Fifth-grader Ricky slipped his arms into a camouflage-green coat Thursday at Bordewich-Bray Elementary School.
"It's really cool," Ricky said. "It's green. I like green because I like turtles. I like the Army, that's the second reason.
"Look," he said, lifting his arms upward. "It fits perfectly."
Ricky was one of 38 students at Bordewich-Bray to receive a new coat, thanks to a $5,000 grant from SBC Communications along with a $500 donation and a 10 percent discount from Wal-Mart. The donations boosted the Carson City School District's Children in Transition program.
Ricky wasn't the only student to notice the green coat. A fourth-grader named Josh had tried it on earlier, but eventually ditched it for an orange one with black lining.
"I tried on the Army one, but it wasn't the one I wanted," he said.
The Raiders Booster Club, which meets at Piñon Plaza to watch football games, also donated $200 to the program.
The money also went to purchase sweatshirts, sleeping bags and underclothes.
"I pretty much cleaned out Wal-Mart yesterday," said Kim Riggs, director of the program for the school district. She described dragging bags of coats through the blowing wind. "The best part of this is watching the girls and boys walk out of here with a beaming smile."
Seven Seeliger Elementary School students also picked out new coats Thursday. Riggs will visit the remainder of the elementary schools within the next week to provide coats to children.
On her first try, Bordewich-Bray second-grader Rita found a blue coat in the pile in the nurse's office.
"It looks like this would work on you," said Mary Ellen Radtke, wife of Lee Radtke, who coordinated the SBC donation with the school district.
Kim Wells, area manager for external affairs at SBC, helped students pick out jackets and write their names in them.
"The SBC Foundation funds a lot of education and technology grants," she said. "In this case, it's a special holiday grant. I think in 2003, the foundation gave $13 million for grants in education throughout the states."
Anyone who is in need of a child's coat can call Riggs at 283-2053.
Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at mo'neill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.