About half of the Bishop Maginn students come to school every September with no backpacks, pens or pencils, notebooks or binders.

Their parents don’t have any money. Being a refugee means, by definition, that you have lost everything.

Mike Tolan and Sue Silverstein told me that in the winter, some of the students need blankets because their families can’t afford to heat their apartments, and some of the kids have to sleep on the floor.

Some children even wear flip-flops to school in the winter.

So we launched a school supplies campaign to buy the things some of the students need but can’t afford. The Army Of Good cleaned out a Wish List for school supplies, and Sue stored them in a closet.

This week, the school contacted all the incoming students and their families to say they could come to the school early this morning and privately and discreetly to get the supplies they couldn’t afford to buy.

She told me a half dozen times how grateful they were.

I stayed away, of course, but Sue said the tables were stocked quite high at first with backpacks, pens and pencils, markers, paper, notebooks, and binders. She said the parents wanted me to pass along their thanks.

There wasn’t all that much left after the families and their kids came through, but it seems that everyone who needed a backpack or supplies got what they needed.

That’s a great thing to have done, and I thank you as well.

There is a special, almost sacred joy that comes to helping children who have nothing and need everything.

In the Fall, we’ll make sure that everyone who needs shoes or jackets has what they need to be warm. We do that in private and give them the funds to go shopping to buy what they want and need.

It is so much better to do good than to argue about what good is.