Rome Men’s School Supply Drive More Than Doubles

We've said it before and we're going to say it again. Central New Yorker's have hearts as big as the Adirondacks. Even in the middle of a pandemic individuals and businesses opened their wallets assisting two Rome men in their quest to make sure kids got the school year off on the right foot.

Four years ago Bryan Brockway and Nazie Anthony started a back to school supply drive. The 1st year the program helped just under a hundred students. And the smiles and excitement shown by the kids picking up the book bags filled with supplies, moved the two life longs friends to make a commitment to not only continue the program, but make it even bigger.

By year three, the annual event assisted two hundred twenty five students. As we all now 2020 has been anything but normal, so Bryan and Nazie weren't sure what to expect in these tough economic times. They worked harder spreading the word about how much more important school supplies would be this year. The duo even got up early in the morning to make an appearance with us on the morning show.

Their hard work paid off. Thanks to donations from Bryan's place of work, Carbone Automotive, Nazie's family business D&D Carpets, the Rome Police Department, and the big hearts of Central New York residents, they stuffed 416 book bags with pens, pencils, crayons, scissors, notebooks, Kleenex, glue sticks, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and many other items kids need for back to school.

Practicing all the necessary public health guidelines, Bryan and Nazie distributed the supplies via a drive-thru event this past Saturday in under an hour.

We salute both men for not only giving from their own pockets, but the countless hours of work organizing, collecting, and distributing the needed school supplies.

As Bryan and Nazie say:

School is hard enough , making sure you have the proper supplies to succeed shouldn’t be a worry.